


Interregnum

by Archdew



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archdew/pseuds/Archdew
Summary: A series of short narratives on Kit and Ty struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of their parting and their separate lives.





	1. Perchance to Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the man of your dreams is hardest when you have to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little something to tide me over until Ty and Kit are together again.

Christopher Jonathan Herondale is fettered by sleep’s gilded gleipnir and hates it. Several lifetimes of running away breed true, Kit supposes, and yet the bonds of lineage and murderous ancestry are wrapped around his neck in the guise of a necklace hung with a silver heron.

 

A bird frozen in wintry moonlight, trapped as he is.

 

Kit stirs, his dreams stirring with him in his restlessness. Faerie magic, leaking from his own treacherous blood, paws at the molten barriers between sleepers. The powers of the Heir, though Tessa and Jem are working hard to keep them hidden, will not be restrained for a petty reason like Kit’s peace of mind. The dreamscape twists like quicksilver and Kit hesitates, knowing what he’ll find if he goes any further.

 

And just like that, the choice is no longer his.

 

Deadly metal, like the wings of death, folds away, and the world is a dizzying circuit board of geometric perfection. Kit drifts high above brilliant lines of blue running over a layer of red so dark, it could have been drenched in blood. Livvy will not be here then. Dreams of Livvy are filled with light and laughter. This sunless dreamscape and these phantom echoes of dripping water are _him_ mourning.

 

Kit tells himself that he shouldn’t be here, that he doesn’t want to be here, but he’s already searching for the dreamer of this private layer of grief. He finds him at the centre of the great configuration, wearing out a circle in a square space where every blue line ends, or possibly begins. When Ty looks up as Kit slowly descends, he doesn’t seem surprised, though he does stop, and speaks.

 

“I miss you.”

 

Kit hangs his head, his feet finally touching the dark floor. The lines of blue light are actually an orderly Milky Way of tiny blue fireflies. Kit thinks back to fireworks and glittering waves.  

 

“I miss you,” Ty repeats. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

 

Kit raises his head to study the young man’s firm jaw and fine lashes. “I couldn’t,” he answers as he always does, “it would’ve hurt.” Ty will not remember the dream or his answer, but Kit feels better for saying it anyway.

 

“You don’t need me," Kit adds, twin pangs of guilt and misery almost choking his voice.

 

Tears draw down Ty’s cheeks in perfectly parallel lines, columns of sorrow in a ledger of quiet anguish.

 

“I made you leave. I broke the world and made you leave.”

 

“No- no, no, no, no-” Kit surges toward him, burying his face into Ty’s slender form as he grips the powerful arms of the full-blooded shadowhunter. “You didn’t make me leave.”

 

_You just broke my heart._

 

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I should have known better. Done better.”

 

“I should have done better too.”

 

Kit feels Ty’s arms wrap gently around him and he can no longer hold back tears of his own.

 

“I should have made you stay.”

 

Kit wakes, his face cold with tears and his chest aching with unhappy dreams.

 

Forcing a chuckle, he wipes the wetness from his cheeks impatiently.

 

“At least it wasn’t Magnus and the seven Alecs this time.”


	2. Excise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He deserved many things, but being cut off doesn't feel like one of them. Ty puzzles over loose ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to just leave it as a one-shot, but reading some great stuff here from you guys got the old creative juices flowing.

Tiberius Nero Blackthorn is pleased. Zara and her Cohort had so blighted his wonder for the school, like a tumor in a brilliant mind, that he had fretted their cancer would prove terminal. But the senior students showed him his room, which he has to himself, and he discovered that the whole school is carved into a mountainside, far enough from the press and noise of people, with grounds so vast and empty that he has more than enough room for his private thoughts to stretch and get comfortable. Then they showed him the library and he knew that they would have to drag him from this place. The roof is clear glass that opens his gaze to the perfect blue of the vast sky, and vivid trees somehow shelter shelves after shelves of secret knowledge as far as the eye can see.

 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” he whispers to Livvy who looks dreamily content. “And maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for.”

 

It’s still orientation week, and classes haven’t started in earnest. Ty had slipped away when the senior students led the others down to the lake for some fun. Ty is sick of ice-breaker games. He would rather be sheathed in ice than partake in more boisterous clamour, especially if said ice was an igloo. Igloos are a fascinating application of thermal insulation. He adds that to the list.

 

The list has grown since he broached the subject of going to Scholomance with Julian. Julian had looked concerned, but that is Julian’s natural state when it comes to family. Livvy tells him Julian needs to live his life at last, which Ty thinks is good at least. Ty does want Julian to be happy, and he does seem happy now that he has Emma.

 

“Julian’s always had Emma.” Ty wonders aloud.

 

“But now he _has_ her,” Livvy points out, peering meaningfully at him.

 

_Like I don’t have you. Like I don’t have anyone. Because I did a Bad thing. This is what I deserve._

 

“It’s what he deserves,” Ty says instead.

 

“Happiness isn’t a reward, Ty,” Livvy whispers, already fading, “it’s something you allow yourself.”

 

Ty shakes his head. Livvy may be right, but Ty simply doesn’t know enough about these things. He doesn’t know enough about many things, which is why he wants to learn. He needs to learn.

 

His list:

 

  1. Consequences of ripping a hole in the fabric of Life and Death.
  2. Fixing said hole.
  3. How to make ghosts corporeal.
  4. What is Kit?



 

Ty’s fingers flutter reflexively. He really shouldn’t be wondering about Kit, but he wants to. Bright and ready, warm and agreeable Kit. Like the Scholomance, Ty had been certain that Kit hating him would have spoilt Kit for him. It hasn’t. Even if the last real thing Kit had said to him was that he wished he hadn’t known him. Even if the last thing he hadn’t said was goodbye. Even if Magnus is right, and Ty suspects he is, that to Ty most of all, Kit didn’t want to say goodbye.

 

It feels as if Kit has surgically cut something between them, and while losing Livvy has torn a hole out of him, losing Kit is aggravating.

 

_What did I do to make you cut me out?_

 

But questions like that cannot be answered by books or learning. People have an infuriating tendency to not be an open book, or at least have a sensible blurb.

 

What is less opaque are phenomena, even magical ones. Magic has rules. Runes, sigils, incantations, and components; you have to have these to harness magic. Rules also have exceptions. If you are a faerie or warlock, you have a natural talent for magic that doesn’t necessarily work through the normal rules.

 

Yet, Kit had worked powerful magic that night with nothing more than his bare hands. He had raised a white light against the Riders of Mannan and cast them down to the earth by the mere clenching of his fists. Ty does remember the Talent rune he had inscribed on Kit’s arm, but to his best knowledge, no Talent rune has ever bestowed the gift of magic upon its bearer, let alone the ability to wield such powerful magic with a gesture. No, it is impossible for any shadowhunter to wield magic like that because of a mere Talent rune, and Johnny Rook couldn’t have taught him such magic- he used magic circles like everyone else.

 

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

 

If Kit doesn’t use magic like everyone else, he isn’t like everyone else. The faerie and warlocks use magic that way, but Kit is a shadowhunter. At least, he has shadowhunter blood.

 

_So, what other blood does Kit have?_

 

_What is Kit?_

 

“And why do the faeries want him dead?”


	3. Heartstrings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams you shouldn't see, words you cannot say, music you cannot hold back- A Kit Herondale confession on quivering heartstrings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, 2022 is so far away... and that's just book 1...

Kit no longer walks between dreams. A few sleepless weeks and Jem’s delicate but masterful questioning had teased out the reason why their young charge had developed a penchant for all-night revision.

 

“You guys are seriously ruining my GCSEs,” Kit had grumbled sulkily.

 

“You’re home-schooled,” Tessa reminded him, an arm draped affectionately around his shoulders, “and it’s safer this way.”

 

“Dreams are powerful channels of supernatural communication,” Jem added gently, “it would be careless of us to assume that they’re not being watched.”

 

“Unless there’s a reason why you wouldn’t like your room warded against these nightly visitations?” Magnus demanded, his cat eyes fixing him with a knowing look. “Any dreams you’ve gotten fond of?”

 

Kit ignored the flush in his cheeks and let his eyes droop in what he hoped was a bored look.

 

“As fetching as you are as Snow White… once is more than enough.”  

 

Tessa grinned. Jem turned an interesting shade of red. Magnus winked.

 

“You’re just jealous you don’t have your own Broody, Moody, Studly, Hunky, Cuddly, Naughty, and Tickles.”

 

“And now, I’m scarred for life.”

 

For the first few nights after the wards were put in place, Kit couldn’t sleep. The bitter irony was not lost on him. Just days before, he had been terrified of falling asleep at night when Ty might be dreaming. Now he feared he’d never fall asleep again, thinking he could feel Ty calling out to him, needing him.

 

As usual, it was Jem who tactfully guided Kit to a solution.

 

“Learning a musical instrument is excellent instruction for a shadowhunter. It encourages discipline, patience, and rhythm, which are all quintessential virtues for a warrior.”

 

“They teach music at the Academy?” Kit asked with a suspicious frown.

 

“No, but some of the best shadowhunters have learned to appreciate the power of music,” Jem replied, a wistful look in his eyes. “And of course, the _famous_ Herondale is a virtuoso of the piano.”

 

Kit twitched and peered up at Jem’s perfectly innocent smile.

 

“You wouldn’t be egging me on, would you?” he demanded.

 

“Kit, you have many enviable talents. I would not wish you to feel inadequate just because you can’t play a musical instrument.”

 

Thirty-six hours later, Jem was signing for a large box with Kit’s new instrument of self-torture.

 

“Why the _guqin_ though?” Kit had heard Tessa murmur softly to Jem.

 

“Because Jace’s is the piano,” Jem murmured back, his voice threaded with amusement, though he added more tenderly, “and because he likes the story of Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi.”

 

The famous musician and the woodcutter who bonded through Zhong Ziqi’s intuitive understanding of Yu Boya’s music. The refined gentleman and the rustic woodsman who were nevertheless soulmates, for all that their unlikely friendship began with a chance meeting in the moonlit woods, when Yu Boya bore his soul through his _guqin_ . When Zhong Ziqi passed away, Yu Boya, grieving before his soul mate’s grave, played the first two pieces of music that he had played for Zhong Ziqi all those years ago- “High Mountains” and “Flowing Waters”. Then he broke his _guqin_ and vowed never to play again, for nevermore would another soul truly resonate with his music now that Zhong Ziqi was no more.

 

When Jem had told him the story, Kit had come dangerously close to crying. He cried anyway when Jem hugged him and patted his back comfortingly. He cried for Zhong Ziqi who must have wanted to listen to Yu Boya’s soulful music one last time. He cried for Yu Boya who must have wanted Zhong Ziqi to hear his heart one last time. He cried for Ty who wanted everything to be alright again; for his sister to be by his side, for his friend to be by his side.

 

He cried because he wanted Ty, even when Ty didn’t want him that way. He cried silently, hating the unfairness of it all, and hating his helplessness even more.

 

It turns out that Kit’s a lot better at the _guqin_ than he imagined he would be. In three days, he could perform a fairly decent rendition of the “Etude to the Transcendent Venerable One”, and after that, “The Phoenix Courts His Bride”, then “White Snow”...

 

By the time he feels confident enough to attempt his favourite versions of “High Mountains” and “Flowing Waters”, he’s performing beside Tessa who insists her unborn daughter loves his playing.

 

“She kicks every time you play,” Tessa points out. “You can feel it in a moment.”

 

Kit shoots her a look of such terror that she laughs.

 

“Jem’s jealous, you know. He’s secretly been playing the violin to her.”

 

Kit snickers as he sets up his _guqin_ by the fireplace.

 

“He’s having no luck so far. He thinks your First Heir blood is helping you cheat.”

 

“Jealousy’s a bad look,” Kit remarks and shares a grin with Tessa. “He’s lucky he’s adorable.”

 

“I think so too.” Tessa confides and Kit laughs.

 

Moments later, Tessa and the Princess, as Kit has taken to calling her, are treated to “Flowing Waters”. The notes tumble with the idle mischief of water flowing in rivulets down a rocky mountain face, peaceful yet capricious, bouncing from stone to stone and rippling over paths untrodden until one stream is joined by another, and another, friends leaping and mingling with the crystalline laughter of water to disappear into the depths of a river winding contentedly down a meander.  

 

So engrossed is he that just as the reverberations of the last note fade to silence, he is surprised by a firm hug from behind. Kit doesn’t have to turn to catch Jem’s familiar scent of crisp papers and Chinese calligraphy ink.

 

“I’m so proud of you,” Jem murmurs in that quiet voice brimming with intensity.

 

Kit doesn’t say anything though an uncomfortable lump fills his throat. Instead, his fingers coax the unspoken feelings out of the _guqin_ strings as he plays “High Mountains”, taking his family up the soaring vistas of dazzling peaks...

The nights are still filled with longing. Kit has never really longed for someone like this, not even for his mother, who wasn’t a Vegas showgirl after all. If Kit had known that the sting of longing could ache this badly, he would have laughed at the Kit who thought nothing could be more painful than facing a Ty who wouldn’t love him back. What is the searing humiliation of being a lovelorn puppy when weighed against the gnawing regret for words harshly spoken and deeds foolishly done against one you cherish more than the beating of your own heart? A Ty who spurns him is better than a Ty tortured by guilt for a crime no one holds against him.

 

The thing Kit didn’t want to face, cannot bear to face, is that he abandoned Ty just when he needed him most.

 

At his touch, Kit’s _guqin_ hummed with the mournful song of a lovesick phoenix who has lost his bride. If anyone is troubled by the late night performance, they keep their peace.


	4. "Or, better still, forget."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty wants answers at any cost, Ragnor just wants to enjoy his perfect morning, and Rafe and Max want ice-cream, and possibly cake. Life can be disappointing at times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're feeling better than I am.
> 
> The title for this chapter is a quote from a favourite poem of my own soulmate.

Ragnor Fell is having a bad day. The ancient warlock had breakfasted magnificently, and the sunrise had been a breathtaking work of pink shot through with gold. Sweet birdsong had coaxed him to stroll serenely across the campus to his first class of the day-

 

-to find Tiberius Nero Blackthorn sitting in the front row.

 

“Oops, I must have the wrong class-”

 

“It’s ‘Spectroaurametry’ by Professor Fell, 8 a.m. It’s now 7.45 a.m., Professor. Mm. 46 now.”

 

Ragnor surveys the otherwise empty class and settles his dark eyes on his one sprucely-attired student.

 

“I’m almost afraid to ask if you’ve murdered the rest of the class and hidden them under their beds.”

 

Tiberius squints at a spot off to the side of Ragnor, a perplexed wrinkle in his brow. Ragnor sighs.

 

“I guess, if they’re still alive and well, we should wait for the others before-”

 

The Blackthorn’s hand shoots up immediately.

 

Ragnor slaps a hand over his face. He had been doing such a good job of not letting the boy catch him alone.

 

“ _Yes… Blackthorn?”_

 

“Professor, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions on a problem I’ve been working on-”

 

“Blackthorn.”

 

“Yes, Professor?”

 

“Is this related in _any way_ to my lessons?”

 

“Yes, Professor.”

 

“Any _direct_ way?”

 

“Mm…”

 

“Just ask your blighted question, Blackthorn.”

 

“What determines the nature of magic?”

 

Ragnor peers at the boy from between his fingers.

 

“What?”

 

“What makes magic Faerie, or Warlock?” Tiberius presses, his lean body all but fizzing like a live wire. “Is the nature of magic defined by its results, like healing magic or necromancy, or by its source, like angelic or demonic magic?”

 

“Ah, young Blackthorn, you probe the very depths of the mysteries of magic.”

 

“Really?”

 

“No.” Ragnor sighs for what feels like the hundredth time this morning. “Magic is magic.”

 

Tiberius’ brows knit in unhappy confusion.

 

“But that… doesn’t explain anything.”

 

Ragnor waves a dismissive hand through the dancing motes in the rays of early light streaming through the long windows.

 

“What’s the difference between a slap and a clap? Or a cut made by glass and one made by steel? Your hand stings the same. The wounds bleed the same. As much as some of us might like to think that magic is divided by the context of its use, magic is unconcerned by our need for moral vindication.”

 

Tiberius takes in the revelation like a diver taking in a deep breath.

 

“You warned me about using necromancy. You said you wouldn’t touch it.”

 

“Because it’s dangerous, not dirty. A thing does not have to be evil for evil to come from it.” Ragnor gazes down at Tiberius with a trace of sadness. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

 

“You cannot borrow from death. You can only pay for it.” Tiberius whispers softly.

 

Ragnor nods soberly.

 

“Magic is like thermodynamics. It only looks like magic can grant wishes with a wave of a hand or the words of a spell, but there’s always a price. Something for something- the immutable law. I told Christopher as much.”

 

Tiberius’ fingers spasm in brief agitation before he grips them.

 

“Kit collapsed after he made the Riders’ horses disappear.”

 

“ _I_ made the steeds of the Riders of Mannan disappear.” Ragnor corrects, a warning in his tone.

 

“I saw-”

 

“What you saw and what you say are two different things.” Ragnor interrupts with a note of finality. “Like magic, words have consequences.”

 

Tiberius falls silent for a moment, thoughtful before he speaks.

 

“I think Kit is safe for now. He- he knows the right thing to do.”

 

“Hell is full of good meanings, but Heaven is full of good works. Let’s hope young Christopher heeds his better angels.” Ragnor glances at the clock. “I don’t credit the Nephilim for much, but punctuality is usually one of your kind’s stronger suits.” The green warlock stares down at his student with a suspicious look. “You haven’t actually murdered your classmates, have you?”

 

Tiberius looks away as his fingers dance.

 

“Tiberius?”  

 

“I didn’t give them enough to kill them.”

 

_“Tiberius?”_

 

“I’ll get the detoxifying draught.”

 

_“Tiberius!”_

 

The detention Ty receives is a lot more horrible than he feared.

 

“I could scrub the toilets for a month.” the young Blackthorn offers to the Consul who, for all the sternness in his blue eyes, looks suspiciously like he’s about to smile.

 

“We’ll be back before dinner.” Alec informs Ty, Rafe hanging off his arm with a winsome pout. “You’ll just have to watch them for three hours or so.”

 

“Four if we stop for ice-cream.” Magnus adds from somewhere out in the hall.

 

“Ice-cream?” Rafe cries, mortally betrayed

 

“Ice-cream?” Max echoes his brother, though he looks eagerly to his father for what is now a promised treat.

 

“Thanks, Magnus.”

 

For once, the High Warlock maintains a saintly silence.

 

“So,” Alec starts again, with a you’re-still-doing-this-right smile, “piece of cake, right?”

 

“ _Cake?”_

 

“Cake?”

 

“Daddy loves you-” Alec says hurriedly, swooping down to give Rafe and then Max fierce hugs, and resolutely avoiding the terror fluttering in Ty’s alarmed fingers.

 

“Tell him about the secret weapon!” Magnus calls.

 

“Yes! The secret weapon!” Alec exclaims like a starving Centurion discovering a care package from home. Alec straightens and looks around the room before pointing triumphantly at a USB flash drive speaker sitting on a low chest of kid-sized drawers.

 

Rafe and Max clap excitedly.

 

“Goo chin!”

 

“Goo chin!”

 

“Goo chin?” Ty repeats, mystified.

 

But Alec is already hitting play.

 

It’s a quiet piece. The song of a single instrument, a single musician. The notes are measured and dignified, yet simple and unassuming. A poet of the wilderness, with a heart that beats like raindrops on catkins. The sweep of his fingers on strings between notes is tightly tucked thought, like a crisply folded letter sliding snugly into an envelope. Words intended but unspoken. The notes ease a tension in his spirit that Ty had not known to attend, careful and unhurried, gifting without entreating. And Ty knows the words to the poet’s song, knows it as if someone has spilled their secret into his soul. _Be well, be well, above all else, be well._

 

Ty barely registers Alec’s reassuring nod to him or the young father’s lingering goodbyes to his boys.

 

It is Rafe tugging his fingers that brings Ty out of his half-trance.

 

“Cake?”

 

“...I did have some special cookies, but they’ve all been confiscated. We could... bake some more?”

 

“ _Without_ the sleeping draught.” Livvy orders, attempting to prod her twin and stabbing him with a ghostly finger instead.

 

Max giggles. Ty works his way up to a smile.

 

“Let’s bring the speakers to the kitchen. We can listen as we bake.”

 

The boys rush to obey.

 

It’s several weeks later, when Magnus has finished the last of his series of guest lectures and his classmates have almost gotten around to forgiving him, that Ty decides to break about a half-dozen school rules. He’s breaking curfew, he’s trespassing into the restricted section of the Scholomance without authorisation, he’s using a glamour for non-sanctioned activity, he’s using runes for non-sanctioned activity, and, oh, he’s consorting with the ghost of his twin sister.

 

“This is a bad idea.” Livvy reminds him for the eighth time.

 

Ty shrugs for the eighth time. Rules are important, but so is this- finding answers.

 

The stories of an enchanted pool that had driven a Centurion to her death would have been tantalising enough, but the Hollow Place is so much more than a mystery to be sleuthed. The pool reveals the truth within one’s soul, laying bare all the evil and pain one has caused, letting one feel it.

 

“Think of Julian. Think of Dru. Think of Tavvy. Helen. Mark. How would they feel if you let yourself get hurt?”

 

“I’m not going to get hurt.” Ty whispers mulishly, though his twitching fingers betray him.

 

 _Do not seek the Place of Reflection._ The sixth school rule he plans to break this night.

 

“I have to do this.” Ty hisses. “You know why I have to do this.”

 

“Why do you have to do this?” a new voice speaks, nearly making Ty yell. He crouches into a battle stance instead, a dagger already in hand.

 

The green pallor of Ragnor’s face in witchlight makes Ty’s face lock down. He rises from his crouch but doesn’t sheathe his dagger.

 

“Why do you have to do this?” Ragnor repeats, rising from a green beanbag chair that wasn’t there last week when Ty scouted this route.

 

Ty’s eyes narrow flintily.

 

“You’re having me watched.” he concludes accusingly.

 

“No. It was a simple enough deduction, Tiberius. Surely you can work it out for yourself? A boy bedeviled by the threat of grave consequences yet unknown? A magic pool that reveals every sin? A friend you’ve hurt who leaves you without a word? Oh yes, I know about that.”

 

Ty flushes, the hold on his dagger shifting. Ragnor’s expression is soft, almost kind.

 

“So let’s deduce why you have to do this, shall we? You know what you did was wrong, you’ve always known, suspected deep inside, even while you pretended otherwise. A smart boy like you would have known- does know. You still wanted to do it. You still wanted what you couldn’t have, so you went through with it.

 

“But now that it’s been done, you realise your suspicions have been right all along. There are consequences to be reckoned with, a price to be paid, but there’s no problem there. You’ve been willing to pay the price from the beginning.

 

“You believed that any deal was better than what you were expected to endure. Any punishment would be better than learning to live without your sister. Maybe you still believe it. No, you still believe it. You’d still do it, this very night, if you could do it all over.”

 

Ty glances wordlessly at Livvy who watches him with helpless sorrow.

 

Ragnor takes a breath and plunges on.

 

“What’s killing you is that you have no say on when and how this toll will be collected. You can’t prepare for something you don’t know. You want to know. You want to know so you can do something about it. Change the outcome to something you prefer. All these questions about magic, all these questions about why Christopher behaved the way he did, they’re all about the one thing you don’t have: control.”

 

Now Ty meets the warlock’s dark gaze with the cold resentment in his silver eyes, resentment fissured with molten panic. There is only compassion in Ragnor’s answer.

 

“What you really need, for all that you reject it, is acceptance. It is what it is. We are not the masters of our destiny, merely the helmsmen. We may steer the boat from time to time, we may even fight the currents to some consequence, but we do not rouse our own tides, we do not breathe forth our own winds. You believe knowledge of what is to come will save you, but I am a good deal older than you, burdened with the answers to mysteries that would beggar even your comprehension, and I know that it will not. The serenity you seek can only be found in wisdom.”

 

Ty shuts his eyes, trembling in his gear, unable to feel Livvy’s worried clasp on his shoulder.

 

“I’m going to bed now.” he declares in a thin whisper, and turns without sparing a look at anyone.

 

“Wards will be placed around the Place of Reflection.” Ragnor informs him. “For your own sanity’s sake, Tiberius, forget this place.”


	5. Burden of the Zephyr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Zephyr carries a lost heron to Love's secret nest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May someone reading this smile from their heart.

Kit has never been more embarrassed in his life.

 

“My prince.” Mark bows, his white-gold hair incandescent in the bright garden of Kieran’s cottage.

 

“Oh, Mark!” Cristina gently reproaches, though her mouth quivers suspiciously. To Kit she adds, “He’s only teasing.”

 

“But he is descended of the Kings and Queens of Faerie. He _is_ a prince of both courts.” Mark objects, his blue-green and gold eyes gleaming with what is definitely laughter.

 

“Ha, ha.” Kit rejoins flatly.

 

The truth is, it is good to see the shadow of sorrow lifted from his countenance. After all the Blackthorns have been through, Kit would like to see them bask in heavenly bliss.

 

Kit frowns. Did he just think the word “countenance”?

 

“I only tease, Christopher.” Mark reassures, misreading his expression. “But by all accounts, it is true all the same. The blood of the First Heir flows through your veins, which is no small thing in the Land of Faerie.”

 

“Which is why we aren’t in the Land of Faerie,” Cristina reminds Mark. “The Kings and Queens of the Faerie are connected to the Land. If an heir to both thrones should tread upon realms Seelie or Unseelie…”

 

“...then my great grand nephew shall be exposed, and the protections wrought around him shall be for naught.”

 

Kit turns as the other Shadowhunters do to regard the King of the Unseelie. There is no pretense at ceremony. Almost as if they were drawn by some happy enchantment, Mark and Cristina, the gallant hunter-warrior, lethal yet delicate like an autumn crocus, and the Lady of Roses, shining Princess of the Nephilim, surge forth to the wild nobility of King Kieran who, stripped of courtly finery, decks himself in their love resplendent.

 

Kit cocks his head over his left shoulder, privately bemused. “Resplendent”?

 

What next? “Forsooth”?

 

“There’s probably a few more ‘greats’ missing there, great grand uncle.” he says aloud, not disliking the warm affection the three share.

 

“Nephew,” Kieran calls. With visible difficulty, he relinquishes the comfort of his lovers’ embrace to circle his arms around Kit. “The rings of the eldest oaks are loved without distinction by their mighty trees. Let those who map such things draw their lines, for the bond we share is in our blood, and the love we share is in our hearts.”

 

Kit flushes despite himself and returns the hug a little awkwardly. When they release each other, he finds Mark and Cristina beaming at them.

 

“If truer words were ever spoken, they were surely never as beautiful.” Mark declares, striding forward to clasp Kieran’s shoulder.

 

Cristina nods, brown eyes brimming, hand pressed to her bosom.

 

“Oh, Kieran... even the fairest jewels pale beside the loveliness of your heart.”

 

“Do you not repent your compliments to me, Mark, when you hear our beloved speak with the glory of a thousand Faerie blooms?”

 

“Forsooth, I do, and do make penance in kisses most devoted, if my Lady will absolve me.”

 

“Alright, are we sure the Faerie Queen hasn’t, like, put a curse on us or something?” Kit demands. “Why are we doing a production of Shakespeare in the garden?”

 

“But dearest nephew, the precious blessing of love sublime is no curse,” Kieran protests, “though, indeed, longing can be bittersweet. Cold is the throne, even for a King of the Unseelie.”

 

“Oh, Kier!”

 

“Oh, Kieran!”

 

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

 

They do eventually get down to business.

 

“I’m a danger to Jem and Tessa as long as I’m living in Devon with them.” Kit argues again to a plainly unconvinced Mark.

 

“You do them insult, young Herondale. The erstwhile Silent Brother and the legendary warlock are implacable foes to those who would harm them and theirs.”

 

“I think what Kit is saying is that he’s worried about Tessa and Jem now that their baby is on its way.”

 

Kit sends a grateful look to Cristina who smooths a hand over his.

 

“But you know, they wanted you in their home when they already knew they were having the baby.”

 

Kit shakes his head. How can he explain how it feels seeing Jem and Tessa’s child growing inside Tessa day after day, and realising that the risks are getting more and more substantial with each passing second? Tessa’s not safe. The baby’s not safe.

 

“Their child is in danger-” Kieran acknowledges slowly.

 

Kit exhales explosively. “I _know._ That’s why I-”

 

“-so how can his parents forsake him?”

 

Kit gapes at the Unseelie King, but it is Mark who answers.

 

“He means you, Kit.”

 

“I’m not- This is their actual baby we’re talking about! Their real child!”

 

“But Kit... is their love for you any less real?” Cristina asks softly.

 

Kit’s lips work silently. No word feels adequate.

 

“I could never forgive myself if something happens to them.” he says at last, raising a fierce but fragile expression to face them in turn.

 

“That’s what family is about, Kit,” Cristina counsels gently, “looking after each other in the face of anything and everything.”

 

“Ripping you from them is no kindness, for either of you.” Mark adds.

 

“And neither my court nor this cottage are safely beyond the reach of Faerie spies.” Kieran concludes. “To house as great a secret as the last descendant of the First Heir- there may be no place in Faerie, nor even the Borderlands, that can succeed at such audacious artifice indefinitely.”

 

Kit’s gaze falls, fists clenched white.

 

“But I cannot turn my nephew away empty-handed in his hour of need.”

 

Kit looks up in surprise to find Kieran smiling indulgently upon him.

 

“I shall gift him a steed worthy of his royal blood.”

 

“A gift most fitting!” Mark exclaims just as Cristina buries her face in her hands.

 

“A- a horse?” Kit sputters. “What would I do with a- I don’t even know how to- I don’t need a horse! I need a hideout!”

 

“Ah, dearest nephew, pray do not study a gift horse by its teeth,” Kieran admonished, “for is it not said by mortal bards, ‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse.’?”

 

“There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t even know where to begin.” Cristina mumbles into her hands, but Mark and Kieran continue animatedly.

 

“Perhaps a blue roan charger with a crown of golden acorns?”

 

“Golden acorns, Mark? The season for golden acorns has long passed! Nay, it is a black destrier festooned with bloody thorns that the lad wants.”

 

“And have every admiring eye for the prince take one look at that monstrosity and speculate what compensations he makes? Fie!”

 

“Um… guys,” Kit interjects, “it’s getting a little late now, so maybe I should just-”

 

“Fine, we’ll let Christopher decide!” Mark declares, clearly not hearing Kit.

 

Kieran leans over the table and smiles eagerly at Kit. “Wouldn’t a black destrier transform into a _devastating_ motorcycle, dearest nephew?”

 

Mark hooks Kit’s arm with his own and spreads his free hand through the empty air, as if unfurling an invisible scroll.

 

“Picture it: the deep, satisfying rumble of a midnight blue power cruiser…”

 

Kit looks between them, brows rising in interest.

 

“Wait. The horse transforms into a _motorcycle_?”

 

“Kit, you’re too young to drive a motorcycle!” Cristina cries, smacking the table as if to knock some sense into the conversation.

 

“But it’ll be a _magic_ motorcycle, my love.” Mark assures her with a manic grin.

 

“And he’s a _prince_. It’s almost a birthright, my enchanted rose.” Kieran affirms with a delirious grin of his own.

 

Kit brings his head closer to the two men with a vulpine smile.

 

“Tell me more about these magic steeds you speak of.”

 

Tessa’s thumbs prickle, but the wickedness is hers alone.  

 

“I’m absolutely going to take advantage of this steady supply of foot rubs, dear husband, but my conscience begs me to tell you not to worry so.”

 

Jem looks up from where he is focusing on pressure points on the soles of Tessa’s feet, startled.

 

His following grin is only a little wry. “Am I that obvious?”    

 

Tessa wriggles her toes and Jem chuckles, returning to the task dutifully.

 

“Kit’s spent too much of his life sequestered away on the dubious claim that it was for his protection. We should know only too well the folly of that than to want to repeat it.”

 

“No, I do know… it’s just… the Borderlands are perilously close to the Faerie Lands-”

 

Tessa laughs. “And thus aptly named.”

 

Jem shares her mirth but his expression quickly clouds.

 

“Cristina- and Mark and the Unseelie King- will no doubt guard him well, but as far as we know, Kit’s never been that close to the Faerie Lands.” Jem peers down at his beloved with grave brown eyes. “Faerie blood is most potent in the Faerie Lands.”

 

Tessa traces a reassuring foot across his forearm.

 

“Kit’s poor father tried to deny his son’s blood, believing that he alone could protect Kit from the dictates of destiny. Yet, it was Kit’s blood, and not his father’s desperate gambits, that saved him in the end. First from the Mantids, and later from the Riders of Mannan. If we are to avoid the errors of his father, we must not fear the strength that flows within Kit.”

 

Jem bows his head, the depths of his eyes filled with consideration of her wisdom

 

“You are right. As always.” he concedes, his smile a single ray of moonlight, peeking through an overcast sky.

 

“As you are good.” Tessa returns, her gaze distant with memory. “As you have always been to those around you. To Will. To me.”

 

“One grows accustomed to fretting over the Herondales.” Jem remarks drily.

 

“You _adore_ having a Herondale back in your life.” Tessa counters, not fooled.

 

“Almost as much as I adore having you in my life.” Jem yields, cradling her foot in his graceful hands to kiss it, while Tessa rolls her eyes at him, not unamused.

 

Kit is happy to get out of the way of the lovebirds, but Cristina and Kieran insist he stays the evening, and Mark seems happy to agree. Kieran and Kit, who had orbited around the Blackthorn family for much of their scant time together, remake their acquaintance. As far as long-lost relatives go, Jace is more “smirky”, but Kieran seems to care just as much about his good opinion, a recurring theme that never fails to baffle him.

 

They speak quietly in the garden, the lights of the dusk sky all the more breathtaking in the pure air of the Borderlands. The river glimmers with the silver fire of the constellations above, and Kit’s heart aches as the susurrations of tall grasses caught in a zephyr breeze stir the memory of a soft voice.

 

_Stars. Crystal. Whisper._

 

“Your heart is broken.”

 

Kit snaps his gaze to Kieran, for once naked of swagger.

 

“It is of no consequence.” Kit blurts out before he can catch himself. A sigh bursting out of him, Kit shakes his head wildly. “I swear this place is making me feel weird. Speak weird.”

 

Kieran nods sagely, the thin golden circlet signifying his kingship glowing above his brow.

 

“The Land wakes your blood. But it does not break your heart. Sorrow has riven it.”

 

Kit says nothing for a moment. Perhaps, if Kieran wasn’t a faerie, perhaps if he is expected to know things like “TMI”, and what a “personal question” is, Kit would continue to say nothing. But Cristina and Mark are preparing supper, and Kieran’s first introduction to Kit had effectively been, “Hello, I have sex with Mark Blackthorn. What about you?”

 

“‘Longing can be bittersweet.’” Kit answers softly.

 

“Ah…” Kieran acknowledges simply, as if Kit had merely said that they are out of soda. “But a heart in love, even broken, is more perfect than a heart of flawless diamond, which is little more than stone.”

 

Kit hangs his head in silence, the westerly wind clinging longingly to his blond curls.

 

“I just worry about him.” Kit confesses at last. “Even though it hurts too much to face him, I just worry about him. Sometimes, I dream about watching over him, invisible, like a guardian spirit or even a ghost-”

 

“-but then you are more than those things, gentle nephew.” Kieran meets the shadow of confusion in Kit’s pure blue eyes with the solid certainty in his black and silver ones. “You are thrice descended from angels, if the legends are to be believed. Once through the angel’s blood in your father, buried deep; once through the angel’s blood of the Lost Herondale, found at last; and once more through the exalted blood of the First Heir, who bled Sin tempered with Grace. Christopher of the Herons, you are a seraph among the Nephilim; a king amongst the Kings and Queens of Faerie, and those who you watch over shall gaze upon you and know they witness Love’s true splendour.”

 

There is a change in the air. The wind grows still. The crickets fall silent. The grasses bow of their own accord. At the centre of all this wonder, Kieran smiles serenely, his hair the vivid blue of cornflowers.

 

“You’re really rocking that new crown of yours.” Kit quips, despite himself.

 

Kieran’s smile broadens.

 

“But dearest nephew, they do not bow to _me_.”

 

Kit looks over the hundreds upon thousands of verdant blades folded over themselves and swallows hard.

 

“Mowing the lawn’s going to be _really_ awkward from now on.”


	6. Above the Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bad law is no law, and a bad verdict is one Ty must reverse. It's in his blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kind notes of support, those special ones of you who have reached out. I am humbly grateful. It's been hard work in some ways, and fun work in many more. I read "Queen of Air and Darkness" late, like, two weeks plus ago, and so I came here to hurt in peace a little later than most. It's still great to nurse my angst with people who understand, and I look forward to the final leg of this journey... for this fic.
> 
> Disclaimer: Quotations, both direct and adapted, from "Queen of Air and Darkness" and "Lord of Shadows" are Cassandra Clare's direct or paraphrased words. My details on magical workings are, of course, products of utter fiction.

_If the Herondales blaze with the light of Heaven’s truth, then the Blackthorns burn with its righteous rage. Woe to he who usurps the authority of Heaven. Woe to he who utters falsehoods as Truth, who raises fallacy as Law. For Heaven does not suffer usurpers, false prophets, nor the perverse. The Blackthorns are Raziel’s pure fury, and it is terrible to behold._

 

Tiberius Nero Blackthorn has never considered himself cruel. As descriptions go, it is a pretty useless one. Is it cruel when a wolf hunts a lamb? It’s sad, Ty will be the first to admit, the first to try and save a stalked lamb if he could, but intellectually speaking, it isn’t cruel to want lunch. It’s necessary.

 

Just like it was necessary to borrow Diego’s fire-message to Cristina when Ty, returning home for a visit, overheard Emma joking about how hardly anyone uses fire-messages anymore since they left Alicante.

 

Lizzy had glowered at him the whole time.

 

“Stealing from Cristina is wrong.”

 

“I’m only borrowing it to get a copy of Diego’s handwriting.”

 

Lizzy’s mulish expression told Ty he had not helped his case.

 

Ty had shrugged it off. Julian would understand. People, even Emma who loves him with what Dru describes as “a reckless passion”, sometimes called Julian calculating. Yet another useless pejorative. What does that even mean? That one can do the math? That one can take logical steps to reach a specific outcome? Ridiculous.

 

Ty had replaced the note before Cristina could miss it. He can live with the consequences of being caught, but not those of being stopped. Besides, it’s the sort of thing that would upset Cristina, if she believed she had been careless with personal notes from her friends.

 

It took three days of carefully studying the picture of Cristina’s note for Ty to produce a passable forgery of Diego’s handwriting. He considered the senior students, then spent an additional week to produce a _good_ forgery of Diego’s handwriting.

 

_“Professor Fell,_

 

_I am writing to inform you of the surprise inspection to be held tomorrow, the 6th of…”_

 

As he signs the note with Diego’s stiff signature, Ty smiles to himself. Ragnor Fell would never, hah, _fall_ for the forgery, but that isn’t going to be a problem because Ragnor Fell is never going to see this.

 

Ty is careful to keep his face blank when he overhears his fellow Centurions hiss about the Inquisitor leading a crack team to inspect their rooms. Once “crack team” is explained (it’s a welcome change to have Ascended in the ranks), there is general disbelief, followed by outrage.

 

“It just dropped into my oatmeal- no loss there really-”

 

“That’s Diego’s handwriting, all right.”

 

“You just unsealed it?”

 

“Didn’t have to. It was half-charred and singed open. I guess a glitch of some sort? Oh, a glitch is-”

 

“Who cares! When did the letter say this is happening?”

 

“Today! And I’ve got a box of- erm- I’ve got a box. And it needs to be relocated. Discreetly.”

 

There is a fair amount of eye-rolling up the table, and even more shifty glances. Ty carefully watches from beneath the veil of his lashes a girl who is sitting a little away from the group. Her sandwiches are untouched and her skin, a pretty shade of milk tea, has gone pale.

 

Ty sips from his goblet, trying not to smile.

 

He chalks up his two-hundred and ninety-third school rule infraction as he stalks Rani down an unused corridor. There aren’t any rules on stalking schoolmates, funnily enough, but doing it glamoured is against Scholomance regulations, as is getting yourself excused from class with a blushing hint at needing to use the bathroom, only to sneak back into your room to retrieve contraband. In fairness to Rani, quite a number of students are disappearing from class for all sorts of concocted excuses, as the great race to hide inappropriate and/or embarrassing possessions begins.

 

Rani and Ty have already had to avoid three awkward encounters in the hallways, two boys and a girl, all hunched over suspicious bulges underneath their gear. When Rani ducks into a room, Ty is content to wait. She soon emerges, coughing as she dusts off the telltale evidence of her wandering. With a final furtive scan, she departs. Ty lets her and gives it a minute or two before he enters the room.

 

He literally traces her steps, having to step on tip-toe to tread within her dainty footprints in the thick carpet of dust. He doesn’t have to go far before he spots the hastily stashed-away shrine, tucked behind the empty iron bed frame.

 

“Aw... she loves him.”

 

Ty glances at Livvy, floating insubstantially over a framed portrait of Jace done in pencils. Rani’s no Julian, but her monochrome work captures the quintessential Herondale cockiness that belies an insatiable tenderness within.    

 

“That’s why it’ll work.”

 

“Could be Kit, really, done like this.”

 

Ty frowns.

 

“It’s Jace. Kit’s smaller.”

 

Livvy’s disembodied laughter is like a memory of an echo.

 

Ty stares at the empty space for a moment. Livvy hasn’t gotten suspicious yet. Good. He turns back to the shrine, and “shrine” is apt. No simple portrait has feathers dipped in gold and shaped to spell its subject’s name glued to its marble frame. No simple portrait includes its own sliver of a shelf, upon which tiny white plaster cupids, or more accurately _amorini_ , are fixed, with their hair hand-painted to be palely gilded, and eyes filled with a richer gold. Ty notes with interest that runes are painted on each one, all in identical places. Voyance on the left hands, which is no surprise, but the _parabatai_ runes close to the neck are pleasingly consistent too, as is the silver star that appears on every cupid’s left shoulder. Empty places between the _amorini_ are where candles would have been placed when the shrine hung on Rani’s wall, perched strategically beneath a row of coat hooks. Easy to hide from nosey classmates, but perhaps not quite good enough a system to fool an Inquisitor and his team of elite Shadowhunters.

 

A stolen glance of love’s secret form- check.

 

Last month, he had won the golden wool off of a Romanian warlock with distinctive ram horns (and got to keep some very intimate parts of his own body that he had not been thrilled to wager- that’s an important plus).

 

The golden wool of a pagan flock- check.

 

A week before that, he’d volunteered to clear some of the old storerooms and was delighted, on the third night, to discover an old pyxis, as he had hoped he might.

 

A pyxis filled with stygian sleep- check.    

 

The seeds of worry and the grains of sorrow in six mounds had been a bit of a head-scratcher, but his own father and Uncle Arthur’s penchant for the Greek classics had helped him there. A quick shopping trip had settled that weeks ago.

 

Wheat, barley, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils, and beans- check.

 

The penultimate component of the spell had actually been the easiest to get. Mark was more than happy to get get him a quartz bowl for his birthday.

 

“There’s a cave in Faerie filled with veins of quartz so beautiful, they put the Faerie stars to shame,” Mark had declared, and had promptly looked for Cristina to discuss their next visit to Kieran’s.

 

As for the contents of the bowl...

 

“Drink with me,” Ty asked Livvy on their birthday, nodding to the gleaming, gossamer-thin bowl brimming with pomegranate juice, red as blood.

 

Livvy gazed at him with distant affection.

 

“You know I can’t.”

 

“Come on, just for fun.” Ty raised the bowl for both of them. “It’s my birthday.”

 

Even Livvy had to smile at that.

 

They stood opposite each other in his room, sipping, or failing to sip, the dark red liquid of the fruit of the Underworld. Ty forced his thoughts to the memory of her laughter, her real laughter, full of life. He remembered her wisdom and compassion, twin wings that had shielded him from the chaos of a world of promises that were jokes, compliments that were insults, people that were monsters. He remembered that she was his guardian angel, always knowing him as he knew her. She made him belong, and she was supposed to belong to him. Forever and ever.

 

A tear slipped down his cheek into the juice that was slowly frosting over with the touch of her ghostly lips. Neither of them drank as Ty’s sorrow-laden breath stirred the liquid, mixing in the tears as they fell. He thought back to Livvy’s anguish at being risen from the dead, to Kit’s anger, wishing they had never met. Of what Julian would have said if he had known. Dark, sickening loathing, thick as tar, made him draw back, but he let the tears of cold self-hatred drop into the half-frozen bowl.

 

When he had blinked his eyes clear, he found that Livvy had evaporated into the night, and he was all alone on their eighteenth birthday.

 

A tincture of hatred and lamentation collected in a crystal vessel... check.

 

The fatal flaw of any plan is overlooking a variable.

 

Ty’s miscalculation, when he sought the Place of Reflection, was failing to account for Ragnor Fell anticipating his actions. Once the centuries-old warlock, older even then the mythic Magnus Bane, had set wards against his entry, Ty has known that the percentage possibility of him breaking past those wards is negligible.  

 

 _Ragnor Fell’s_ miscalculation is that Ty needs to break into the Place of Reflection at all. The enchanted pool is not the only source of the Hollow Place’s magical waters. Someone enchanted that pool at some point of the Scholomance’s long history, and since it has been a part of Scholomance history, the knowledge of its crafting must lie within the recorded lore of that history. For months, then years, Ty searched in the _Bibilioteca_ , in the libraries of the Silent City, and the Spiral Labyrinth too, whenever he got the chance. When he finally found what he was looking for, it appeared as little more than an old, cryptic warning:

 

_“Woe to those who Willfully Transgress_

_Reflect upon thy Sins_

_For should thy Gaze be drawn within_

_Alas, Alas, Alas-_

 

_A Stolen Glance of Love’s Secret Form_

_Will set thee on thine Trial_

_Seeds of Worry and Grains of Sorrow_

_Six in Mounds thou Pile_

_Golden Wool of Pagan Flock_

_Thou Spin like Withered Fate_

_Tincture of Hate and Lamentation_

_In Crystal Thou Libate_

_Last before the Sown is Reaped_

_A Pyxis Filled with Stygian Sleep_

 

_Sun for Light_

_Moon for Sight_

_Stars for Wisdom_

_May it Guide.”_

 

His first fumblings with magic had found him clumsy in youthful arrogance and blind grief. Since then, he has learned much.

 

Ty knows the last stanza directs him to draw two magic circles- the greater one placing the sun at an exalted zenith of the ecliptic, and the lesser one placing the moon at an exalted nadir of the ecliptic, the circles overlapping. The “Stars” are the blessed angels, whose names he inscribes in sectors of the circles where their benevolent influence can draw down protection and divine guidance.

 

The components of the spell he spaces equally around the twin circles, from first to last. Rani’s shrine to Jace is placed below the nadir of the moon’s circle. Then going counter-clockwise, the six mounds of seeds and grain. Next, the golden wool of the warlock wound directly onto a spindle, placed above the zenith of the sun’s circle. Walking down the other side, he sets in place the half-frozen bowl of pomegranate juice, retrieved from an ice chest underneath his bed. He had gotten a lot of weird looks from the kitchens for the stacks of ice packs he cycled through. Last of all, he places the pyxis at the nadir of the sun’s circle. This he has kept most carefully of all. There is no telling what evil lies within. He glances at the angelic name he has inscribed at this point, the name of one that is said to guard Hell and forbid the damned from ever escaping their eternal damnation.

 

Then there is gold for the sun and silver for the moon. Ty flicks his gaze to the moon’s circle. There, at its centre, sits a silver-plated punch bowl, that he had managed to spirit away from the Los Angeles Institute, filled with clear water from the lake. At the centre of the sun’s circle sits a goblet of solid gold that Ragnor Fell had wrinkled his nose at the first time he sat at the high table and refused to use. Ty had liberated it from the “treasury”, a pantry adjoining the kitchen where the finer dining ware is kept. It is carefully filled with his energy source for the spell, fresh from the vein. His vein, specifically.

 

Blood is a powerful catalyst in and of itself. The tricky thing is, it’s not always willingly given, and uncorrupted blood taken from oneself doesn’t usually contain enough power for serious magical workings. But Ty, as a Shadowhunter, has two advantages that normal mortals do not have. Firstly, he has the blood of angels running through his veins, gifting his blood with innate seraphic magic. Secondly, he can draw blood replenishing runes on himself, which makes him a veritable blood tap- as long as his strength holds out.

 

_“When he says ‘Blackthorn blood’, there isn’t any chance he just means, like, an ounce? Maybe a pint?”_

 

Ty smiles at the memory. Where his wrist is gouged, the bleeding slows as the _amissio_ rune he’s drawn takes effect.

 

It’s as good a time as any to start the-

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Ty shuts his eyes and takes a breath, trying to steady his flustered hands.

 

“Ty, what is this? What’s- is that your _blood_?”

 

He turns around, forcing himself to meet the horror in Livvy’s wide, vaporous eyes.

 

“I hoped you wouldn’t be here for this.”

 

She flies at him, struggling to grip him by his shoulders, her incorporeal fingers sliding through him like biting winter winds instead.

 

“You’re dabbling in dark magic again?” she cries, her face stained with anger through what must be the memory of a living instinct.

 

Ty tries to hold her, to soothe her, but she slips through his grip too. He cannot comfort her any more than she can stop his insanity. Twins divided by the pitiless border between the agonies of life and the exile of death.

 

“Not dark… not necromancy. Divination magic.”

 

“We’re Shadowhunters! We don’t dabble with _any_ magic!”

 

“We are not the Shadowhunters from the age of our fathers!” Ty retorts shakily. “Clary uses runes that the Gramarye does not contain. Julian and Emma became true Nephilim, titans embodying heavenly fire, smiting unworthy Nephilim. The _parabatai_ rune, yes, Livvy, even the _parabatai_ rune, which burns at the very heart of Shadowhunter lore, is a rune made by Nephilim, not gifted by Heaven as we were told to believe. The ritual, Livvy, the ritual consists of _three circles of fire_ . One for each half, and the third for both halves to come as one. That’s not symbolism, that’s magic! What’s forbidden? What’s permitted? We’re not even allowed to step into Alicante anymore- our ancestral home! Our ancestral _country_ . Not by the edict of the Angel, but because of _politics_.”

 

Ty breathes hard, Livvy watching him in stunned silence, as if she’s never seen him like this before, as if realising for the first time that time has truly stood still for her and her alone.

 

“Yes, I’m a Shadowhunter,” Ty continues, trembling, “but I am my own Shadowhunter. I will not be bound by the rules conspired on years ago in a Gard I can no longer even see. If there is knowledge I need, I will not be denied it merely because of the hypocrisy of our forefathers. But you don’t have to look, Livvy.”

 

Ty gazes into her eyes, eyes that he remembers were always more beautiful than his.

 

“Don’t look, Livvy.”

 

He turns his back to her and speaks the words of the spell, the cryptic poem itself.

 

“Woe to those who willfully transgress, reflect upon thy sins…”

 

“Ty-”

 

“For should thy gaze be drawn within, alas, alas, _alas_!”

 

The golden goblet of his blood smokes as the spell begins to shape.

 

“Ty, stop this!”

 

“A stolen glance of love’s secret form, will set thee on thine trial…”

 

White fire springs around the shrine, ethereal and unconsuming for now. Ty feels a pang, the image of shy but kind Rani flashing across his mind.

 

“Seeds of worry and grains of sorrow, six in mounds thou pile…”

 

More white flames. The golden goblet is fuming on dregs now. Ty draws his dagger out of its holster.

 

_“Stop it!”_

 

The tortured shriek startles Ty and he spins round to see Livvy billowing in an unearthly wind, bleeding chilling green light.

 

“Li-Livvy...”

 

 _“Stop it! Stop it!_ **_Stop it!_** _”_

 

A blast of cold air hits him, forcing Ty to stagger back, stunned. The faint ring of metal on wood makes him snap his head back. He quails at the fallen goblet and the small spray of his blood on the wooden flooring, yet quickly turns back to Livvy, his hands spasming in distress.

 

But she is gone. He turns back and forth, scanning the room, and finds no trace of her.  

 

“Livvy! Livvy!”

 

Has he lost her for good? The very molecules in Ty’s hands seem to vibrate at hazardous levels. He works on his breathing, trying to focus on the inhale… and then the exhale… as he slowly rocks himself forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards…

 

No, he hasn’t lost Livvy. She’s probably just really tired. All of this is stressful for her, and that is his fault. He should have told her he is going to do this. He should have made her understand why. Ragnor Fell is wrong about one other thing- Ty doesn’t want control, he wants redemption. Not for himself, but for Livvy. The day he had raised her from the dead, he had failed. The corrupted catalyst had been his miscalculation, and it should have ended there- but it didn’t.

 

_“But you can stay with me, right? You can stay with me like this?”_

 

_“Is that what you want?”_

 

_“Yes. That’s why I did all this. I want you with me in any way you can be.”_

 

 _“But you have upended the universe, and we_   _will all pay for it.”_

 

And she had stayed, stayed with him because he asked. Just as Kit had, until it became too much.

 

_“You raised Livvy for you, not for her or anyone else. You knew the damage it might do. You only thought of yourself. I wish- I wish I’d never known you-”_

 

And Kit was right. Ty had known he was right. He knows it.

 

He’ll fix it.

 

Ty turns back to the magic circles, a grim smile on his face as he regards the twin white flames that still blaze. Righting the goblet, he readies his dagger, and cuts deep. Blood rushes forth from the lips of the wound, filling the golden vessel, which smokes as soon as the red liquid touches it.

 

He won’t let Livvy pay for his sins. Nor Kit. They are _his_ sins.

 

“Golden wool of pagan flock, thou spin like withered fate…”

 

And if that means finding out what retributions he had effectively begged his sister, or Kit, to suffer-

 

“Tincture of hate and lamentation, in crystal thou libate…”

 

-if that means bringing Raziel’s wrath upon him for dabbling in magic-

 

“Last before the sown is reaped, a pyxis filled with stygian sleep…”

 

-then-

 

“Sun for light, moon for sight...”

 

_-then-_

 

“...stars for wisdom…”

 

**_-So. Be. It._ **

 

“May it _guide!_ ”

 

Six white blazes flare to incandescence, the objects they surround utterly consumed. Then the fires vanish as if they had never been, and the goblet ceases to steam. In the moon-veiled darkness of the room, the lake water glows luminous.

 

A mournful bell tolls in the distance and Ty feels a great pressure force his weak knees to buckle. Grimacing, Ty’s mind races.

 

A warning bell? A signal that forbidden magic has been cast on the grounds?

 

Something doesn’t make sense, but Ty’s head feels like it’s been stuffed close to bursting with smoking steel wool. Falling over onto his hands, a wave of dizziness nearly slaps him prone. Dry heaving for a few awful moments, he somehow masters himself, and crawls over to the silver punch bowl.

 

Someone is pounding on the door.

 

“Ty! Ty, open the door now! Ty!”

 

The voice is so familiar… Ragnor Fell? Magnus? Julian? Panic seizes his heart.

 

They will stop him. They’ve come to stop him.

 

Strength whipped by fear makes him lunge for the golden goblet.

 

The door shudders in a thunderous blow, cracking.

 

There’s no time to think. There’s only one way they can’t take the water from him. He scoops the gleaming water with the bloody goblet and gulps it with a desperate thirst. He doesn’t even feel it going down as the magic takes hold of him.

 

Visions blind him, rushing upwards like a ghastly waterfall in reverse. Screaming deafens him, and he doesn’t realise it’s his own. Or that the distant crash is the door being smashed in.

 

“Ty! Ty? No. No! Ty, no please- come back to me!"

 

The hellish visions part. The tormented wailing quiets.

 

The blue of the sky framed with the pale gold of the dawn. Those eyes-

 

“...Kit?”

 

“You fool,” he wept, _“what have you done?_ ”


	7. The Only Throne Worth Ascending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If even a con man can get his heart stolen, no one is safe- as no one should be.

Cirenworth has stables. Technically, Half-a-day/Half-a-night doesn’t actually need them, being a magic horse, but Half-a-day likes being “put in his place” from time to time. Kit’s mildly embarrassed by it all, but Jem and him had worked very hard to at least restore the old structure to its former glory. Half-a-night still hates it though.

 

“It always stinks of manure here. Why the High King of the Fair Folk would make his noble steed stand in a dung heap is a mystery, to be sure.”

 

Kit glares at the black half of his “noble steed”, dusting the straw off his clothes. “It can’t stink of manure because there _isn’t_ any manure. You’re the only horse I have, and magic horses don’t poop.”

 

“Then the straw reeks.” Half-a-night insists. “Why the High King of the Fair Folk can’t get straw that doesn’t carry the stench of a dung pit is a mystery, to be-”

 

“It’s fresh straw! Eucalyptus-scented!” Kit protests indignantly. The gray half of his horse twists within view and nuzzles Kit’s shoulder.

 

“We’re sorry, Master. We like the straw very much, Master. Can we have a neck rub, Master?”

 

“Oh, is it tense? Was it today’s practice?” Kit asks, smoothing his hands over Half-a-day’s silver coat.

 

Half-a-night snorts indelicately from the far side.

 

“Today’s practice was nothing.”

 

Half-a-day whinnies, tossing their head.

 

“We do like your neck rubs, though, Master.”

 

Kit grins and feels for the muscles at the crest of Half-a-day/Half-a-night’s dual-sided neck, just beneath their silver-black mane, when a soft, wistful voice makes him start.

 

“I wish _I_ could talk to horses.”

 

He swivels around to find a spectral girl gazing longingly at his faerie steed. Her long gossamer dress swirls around her, touched by a phantom breeze, but not even death touches her beauty, except to add to it a tragic timelessness; fifteen going on sixteen till the end of time.

 

“Actually, I’d have settled for a horse of my own. Maybe a nice Arabian like Half-a-day. Their necks have such a graceful curve.”

 

“Livvy,” Kit breathes, “is Ty-”

 

Livvy flicks her gaze to him, and a twinge of guilt twists within him. He did this to her.

 

“Could you ride to him tonight?”

 

Kit feels as if all the air has been sucked out of his lungs.

 

“What-” he gasps, “Ty- something’s-” Pain and panic threaten to rip his chest apart.

 

“No,” Livvy answers, her eyes softening, “at least nothing yet.”

 

Kit feels as if he can breathe again, and he leans against Half-a-day’s pale half of the neck as the horse nuzzles him a second time.

 

“But there’s something… strange… going on with Ty. Something he doesn’t want me to know. I can feel it.”

 

Kit tries to pat Half-a-day, but his horse turns as Half-a-night faces Livvy for a look. Like him, both sides of his horse see spirits, and even understand some of her words.

 

“What do you mean? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

 

Livvy hovers up to the Friesian half, the white star more prominent on his side of the forehead.

 

“You’re pretty too, of course. And you move like a dream,” she coos, stroking the air just above Half-a-night’s muzzle and making him snort. Livvy glances at Kit sidelong. “I told you, he doesn’t want me to know. He’s pretty good at keeping secrets, and he knows when I need to rest. That’s why I came to you. So you can find out.” She pauses and turns to face him fully. “Will you do it?”

 

Kit looks down, blue eyes fraught with visible struggle.

 

“Livvy… I don’t know why you think he’ll tell me anything.”

 

 _I’m_ nothing _to him._

 

He braces himself for her wrath, for her disappointment, but neither comes.

 

“You told me the story of your horse.”

 

“Livvy-”

 

She arches a brow.

 

“Do you remember?”

 

Kit sighs, stroking Half-a-night absently.

 

“Of course, Livvy.”

 

“They were two free spirits who bound themselves as one.”

 

Half-a-day/Half-a-night neighs softly in agreement with her.

 

“You told me they spoke to you. What did they say?”

 

But his horse can speak for itself. Sort of.

 

“We said, ‘You who calls to Faerie, through the sovereign voice of the Unseelie King. You who bid Faerie provide you with a worthy steed, willingly we answer your call.’” Half-a-night answers in horse-speak.

 

Kit glances between the intent Friesian and a bemused Livvy. Half-a-night gently bumps his arm just as Livvy nods at him.

 

“Translate.”

 

“Translate.”

 

“Erm… he’s talking about the time Kieran let me link to Faerie through him, to summon a faerie steed.”

 

Half-a-day turns into view.

 

“Then you said, ‘What the- are you trolling me, Kieran?’ And the Shadow Lord said, ‘But I have brought no trolls, dear Nephew...’”

 

Kit interrupts by clearing his throat.

 

“And now he’s talking about when he first offered to be my steed.”

 

Half-a-day tosses his head, confused.

 

“No, Master, I said…”

 

“...and how we were all surprised that I could talk to horses and realised it probably had something to do with some weird Faerie stuff,” Kit finishes with a meaningful glance at the Arabian.

 

Livvy raises her brows but makes no comment.

 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Half-a-night interjects, “we said to you, ‘We are two who have become one, for our hearts could no longer stand to remain apart once each knew about the other. You who disguises his scent with the Unseelie King’s, you smell of both Seelie and Unseelie, noble through and through. We would have you ride us.’”

 

Kit races to keep up with the translating, deftly leaving out the part about his Faerie heritage.

 

Half-a-day turns to continue. “‘As two we would have been divided, one a Seelie mount, one Unseelie. So we remade ourselves as one, for our feelings for each other could not be divided. Who he serves, I shall serve.’”

 

Half-a-night takes over. “‘And who he serves, I shall serve; neither one to part. So we shall serve you, King of Twin Courts, for by the magic of our union, no one court may we serve.’”

 

Half-a-night weaves their head back and forth with Half-a-day, so they can take turns catching Kit’s eye.

 

“‘We were born to find each other, but we found each other to serve you,’” they echo.

 

“...and then I brought them back here, as a bicycle, so Tessa wouldn’t throw a fit,” Kit adds after translating it all for Livvy. “Is- is this what you wanted to hear?” he finishes a little lamely.

 

Her smirk is disconcertingly smug.

 

“It’s what you needed to hear. I just wanted you to say it.”

 

Kit blinks at her.

 

“‘We are two who have become one, for our hearts could no longer stand to remain apart once each knew about the other.’” Livvy quotes back to him. “Remind you of anyone?”

 

“Erm… you and Ty?”

 

Livvy raises her eyes as if praying for patience.

 

“It’s a good thing you’ve grown up gorgeous, Herondale.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“I’m talking about _you_! You and Ty!”

 

Kit just gapes at her.

 

“You’re really making me do this?” Livvy demands. “You’re making me bring up how he always wanted you around? How it was always the two of us until Ty couldn’t stop watching you? Seeking you out?”

 

“ _Ty’s_ been seeking _me_ out?” Kit all but sputters. “I’m the one who was going mad with the fear that I was going to lose him! I’m the one he didn’t need! Didn’t... didn’t want.”

 

Livvy goggles at him.

 

“Is  _that_ what you think? Why in Raziel’s name would you think that?”

 

Kit resists the urge to punch something as Half-a-day/Half-a-night look on in interest.

 

“ _What are you talking about?_ You were there! You heard him say it!”

 

“Say what?”

 

Kit falters and casts his gaze to the fading sunset outside.

 

_What’s the point? It’s not even important anymore._

 

“Nothing.” He glances at Livvy and leans back against a wooden frame, as limp as a deflated balloon. “It’s alright. I’ll send a fire-message to Dru. Maybe she’ll get through to him.”

 

“Kit, heard Ty say what?” Livvy hovers closer to him, speaking with an old tenderness that makes his eyes prickle unexpectedly.

 

_“Did I do something wrong?”_

 

_“Not even a little.”_

 

Now he hears Ty’s broken voice even as Kit repeats the words that have haunted him in so many quiet hours, deep into the night.

 

“‘There’s nothing if you aren’t there.’ Livvy, you were always the beginning and the end to him.”

 

He can see the shadow of memory pass over her eyes, sorrow blossoming in its wake.

 

“That’s not what he meant. He was in grief, Kit.”

 

“No.” Kit veils his eyes. As sick as he feels, a slow blush creeps across his cheeks. “You didn’t hear. I… confessed. Told him how I felt. Begged him to stop in the name-” and here Kit breaks off to laugh- a harsh bitter sound- “of my pathetic, arrogant love for him. Because surely, surely, Ty, who would descend into hell for you; Ty, who ripped the world at its seams for you- that Ty- surely his life would be complete now, after having you, his heart, torn out of his chest, because some boy, some _stupid_ boy, told him he loves-” Kit’s throat locks, feeling as if he were simultaneously going to choke and gag.  

 

Kit senses a ghostly chill wrap around him, and he shivers with surprising relief.

 

“Oh, Kit,” Livvy whispers, “I cannot speak for you and what you feel. Were I alive, I would give you the warmth and comfort that a friend should offer. But I am dead, and beyond the comfort and consolation that the living share.”

 

Kit fights the urge to hold her, his fingers curling wistfully beside her sheer form.

 

“The dead can only offer wisdom, and I offer this: that Ty has not been whole since you left him.”

 

“Since _you_ -”

 

“-except I’ve been with him this whole time and it hasn’t kept him whole. And still I stay because he cannot let me go. I stay because to lose someone you’ve had since the day both of you drew breath- that pain... it’s unimaginable.”

 

Kit draws a sharp breath as Livvy carries on.

 

“It’s almost enough to blind you to the difference between right and wrong, life and death. Almost. The love of the dead can remind us of who we have been, but only the love of the living can show us the promise of who we can be. Ty loves me with a desperation for the past we shared, as if he can save himself by saving whatever part of me he can reach. Ty’s feelings for you are a mystery even to him, one filled with incalculable potential.”

 

Kit starts to object but Livvy hushes him with a gauzy finger.

 

“Do you remember what I said at the beach, when you kissed me?” she asks, smiling distantly as if she’s recalling it now.

 

Kit flushes, struck by the singular awkwardness of someone who’s kissed the sister before they realised they’re actually in love with the brother.

 

“Um-”

 

“It was my first and last kiss.”

 

Kit mentally wills a yawning portal to oblivion to open in the concrete stable floor.

 

“I told you then that I felt like I was missing out on all the chances I should have. That for me, it was always us Blackthorns alone, against the whole world. Ty’s the same way, for all that he wanted to study at the Scholomance- and has. For him, the world is chaos, madness. He lives in a fragile bubble of sanity, floating upon the pandemonium of the outside world. Few people have been allowed into his bubble, even amongst family. No one has been invited- apart from you. Until you came along, it hadn’t crossed his mind that he could want someone from that chaotic pandemonium to join him in his own exclusive little bubble. You fascinated him. You bewitched him. Then you left him.”

 

Kit flinches but Livvy shakes her head.

 

“I’m not blaming you… not really, anyway. I’m sure you had your reasons. But don’t let them be Ty. Don’t let your reason for staying away from him be because you think you don’t mean a whit to him. Because you’re the one part of himself he didn’t expect to find- but he did. Now he feels like he’s lost that part of him for good, and he thinks, I suspect, the better part.”

 

Kit trembles against the wooden frame.

 

“You just want to guilt me into going over to Ty,” Kit accuses with a shaky laugh.

 

“Is it working?”

 

“I-”

 

“Something’s wrong.”

 

“What?” Kit lurches up, eyes wide and alert. Livvy rolls her head back and forth restlessly, as if caught in a nightmare. “What’s wrong?”

 

“I don’t know… Something. Ty-”

 

“Livvy!” Kit cries as her ghost vanishes abruptly, though not before he catches the fear in her eyes.

 

“Livvy?” he calls out to her again searching the stables, his heart pounding fearfully. He’s unable to find any trace of her.

 

“She’s gone, Master,” Half-a-day points out.

 

“She looked afraid,” Half-a-night notes.

 

Kit glances anxiously at the main manor. Jem and Tessa are expecting him for dinner. Is there time to warn them? Can they help? But he doesn’t even know what kind of trouble Ty is in. If it’s something illegal-

 

“Shall we ride out?” Half-a-night offers.

 

Kit hesitates. A fire-message. For Jem. He will understand, and maybe persuade Tess not to kill him for this.

 

“How long to the Carpathians?”

 

They race against the moonlit sky, making Kit’s hair stream behind him like a pale gold pennant. Randomly, he is reminded of Tessa eyeing his long curling locks with a critical eye.

 

“I think I won’t grow it longer than shoulder-length,” he had hastily assured her.

 

Her non-committal hum had made him sidle away sideways, hands held out as if to block the smaller warlock from pouncing on him.

 

Jem had been doubled over with the effort of containing his laughter.

 

Now he imagines Jem receiving his message, stiff disapproval underlying his measured restraint, thinking about how he’s going to break it to Tessa.

 

Kit shakes the thought off. He’ll grovel later once he’s made sure that Ty’s alright. Because, of course he is. He has to be. He has to.

 

Half-a-day/Half-a-night pierce through the night at speeds that would have thundered in the clear sky, were it not for their magic. It’s also Faerie magic, aligned with his First Heir blood, that keeps him safely tethered on their backs as the world rockets backwards. There’s no mistaking them for regular horses in this form, even if you only see them from one side. Sweat gleams off the glowing coat of Half-a-day, as bright as glinting white sand under the summer sun, while Half-a-night glimmers like a dark, frozen lake reflecting the winter stars. Their eyes shine in actual rays, one golden, one iridescent, and their mane is a gilded pink dawn on one side, and a shifting aurora on the other. Then, of course, there’s the fact that there are eight legs blurring in a full gallop, instead of the usual four. He hadn’t known about that.

 

“How fast do you want to get there?” Half-a-night had asked him.

 

“Faster than the flight of angels,” Kit had blurted impetuously.

 

“We can’t do that, Master,” Half-a-day had meekly replied to that, “but we’ll get you there in half a mortal hour.”

 

“That’s… It’s like a 4-hour flight by plane.”

 

“Don’t blame Plane, Master, we’re just _very_ fast.”

 

“Why do you think we’re called Half-a-day/Half-a-night?”

 

“I always assumed… because you’re half… er… and half… nevermind.”

 

So fast they could traverse the Seelie lands in half-a-day, and the Unseelie lands in half-a-night- that’s what their name alludes to. He has to remember to treat them with the respect due to the horses of kings, like Kieran advised. He’s getting the premium straw from now on.

 

“Reaching… Master…” Half-a-day steams breathlessly.

 

Kit strokes both sides of their neck in reply.

 

“Front door… or…” Half-a-night demands, equally strained.

 

Kit frowns. If Ty is in dire trouble, he’ll be wasting precious minutes arguing with the Scholomance’s guards, assuming they’re amenable to hearing him out at all. Then again, the Scholomance is likely to be warded like any Institute, and with ancient, powerful wards at that.

 

The gloomy fortress that is the Scholomance rushes within view and he can feel Half-a-day/Half-a-night slow beneath him.

 

“A barrier… Master…”

 

“Have to… stop…”

 

They ease to a canter, dipping lower as they do so, preparing to trot into a landing- but where?

 

The air glitches before him, and Kit pales as he realises what it is. Scattered ectoplasm.

 

 _“Livvy?”_ he exclaims, recognising the flickering ghost with alarm. “What happened to you? And Ty-”

 

“...he’s… danger… blood…”

 

She doesn’t reappear, but her panic cannot be clearer.

 

“Climb, Half!”

 

For once, Half-a-night doesn’t comment on the nickname, and they glide higher. Kit frees a dagger from its sheath, his skin pressing against etchings of herons in flight. Then he shakes his head, resheathes the dagger, and takes out his stele. Rolling up his short sleeve to expose his upper arm, Kit draws the Talent rune exactly where it had burned 3 years ago when the Riders of Mannan had tried and failed to kill him. He looks over the vivid black rune on his left arm when he’s done, inspecting his work. He only has one chance at this. Exchanging his stele for the Herondale dagger, Kit draws forth a lock of his hair, slicing the thin silver blade neatly through its gold. He returns the family keepsake to its sheath and takes in a deep breath of the bracing mountain air.

 

“I’m going to be grounded for a billion years.”

 

Gripping his bright lock of hair, he arcs his arm back, ancient words of power pouring forth from his lips.

 

“Steady!” Kit barks at last and his stallions, having guessed their rider’s intentions from his movements, silently obey. He waits for them to level. The ancient stronghold of the Centurions glares malevolently from the shadows of the mountains, contemptuous of the tiny speck in the sky that dares to raise a fist against it.

 

Kit swings his arm forward, as if cracking a whip. A giant golden lash springs from a pale nimbus around his clenched fist, slicing furiously through darkness as it blurs into the fortifications. Ten feet from the stone walls, the magical whip crashes into an invisible barrier, the air shuddering with dreadful impact. In one fluid motion, Kit draws the whip back and snaps his wrist. Like a great sun serpent, the whip strikes, viciously biting into the exact spot of the first weal. Kit feels the ancient wards give a little, as if recoiling in pain, but he also senses movement seething within the Scholomance- its defenders rousing. The Talent rune on Kit’s arm burns warningly, and a dull ache throbs in his chest. Kit grits his teeth.

 

_For Ty._

 

The third lash smites the trembling wards with a bolt of unbearable light. The wards splinter, a thousand faults blazing in the fiery throes of its destruction. Chunks of the mountain, crumbling in the blast, tumble into the dark lake below. A deep, mournful bell tolls from the Scholomance as fragments of destroyed wards fall over it in a rain of fire.

 

Kit’s fingers unfurl. The lock of his fair hair, now turned to grey dust, swirls away in a violent breeze. He leans closer to his stallions.

 

“Bring me closer, then find a safe place to hide.”

 

“Do you mean us to leave you, Master?”

 

“We cannot abandon you to the Nephilim! Their blades are merciless and their hearts without pity.”

 

Kit smiles crookedly but quickly sobers.

 

“They can do their worst. As long as they let me save Ty first.”

 

Half-a-night snorts unhappily, but they dutifully launch themselves through a gap within the ruined dome of protection. Kit notices figures in gear, a dozen, maybe more, and the glint of arrowheads trained in their direction.

 

“Careful!” Kit warns. “Archers!"

 

“Worry not, Master,” Half-a-day calmly replies as Half-a-night gives another snort, this time derisive.

 

They weave through the darts of fire hailing from above. Kit spies bright arcs of arcane green and blue on the battlement that make his heart leap.

 

“There!” he cries, pointing in their direction.

 

A flash almost grazes them, but Half-a-day/Half-a-night wheel smartly about, deftly evading a volley of the first arrow’s brothers. With a burst of speed, the stallions streak like a fallen star speeding towards knots of defenders crouching behind a row of merlons. Shadowhunters scurry out of the way, and Kit hears Half-a-night whinny with wicked delight.

 

“Master!” Half-a-day prompts and Kit sucks in a breath, then leaps.

 

Mid-air, he suddenly remembers Jace trying to convince him to leap off the rafters of the Los Angeles Institute. He had thought his cousin crazy, homicidal, or probably both. When he lands behind the scattering backs of the Centurion guards, he looks up at Half-a-day/Half-a-night pawing at the air thirty, maybe forty, feet above him. He flings his arm out in a signalling wave and they rear up once, pure wild magnificence, before soaring up and cantering out of sight.

 

“Well, well. Christopher Herondale. I assume you have an _amazing_ explanation for interrupting my reading time.”

 

“You mean binge-watching-Netflix time.”

 

Kit spins around to find two remarkably similar expressions of exasperation levelled at him.

 

“One can do both,” Ragnor Fell retorts dismissively as Catarina Loss shoots him a bored, sideways glance.

 

Kit takes their lack of crackling arcane energy as a good sign. Behind them though, he sees the Centurions he’d run off, stalking back towards him, vengeance in their eyes.

 

“Ty’s in trouble. You’ve got to take me to him.”

 

“Ty?” Catarina asks with a puzzled frown.

 

“Tiberius Blackthorn.” To Kit, Ragnor leans closer, speaking in a low but intense whisper. “You came, riding a steed of the Faerie, and assaulted the Scholomance, fortress of the Solomonari, with fearsome Faerie magic, for _Tiberius Blackthorn?_ ”

 

For all his tightly-wound fear, Kit meets the ancient warlock’s dark gaze steadily.

 

“Yes. _Please._ He could be dying!”

 

It is Catarina that eventually leads Kit down from the battlements and into the school proper.

 

“I’ll have to explain this to the school administration,” Ragnor had told him, waving Kit away as the Centurions glared at them mutinously. “Go deal with your Blackthorn emergency.”

 

“Tiberius is dying?” Catarina demands in the present.

 

Kit nods emphatically, struggling not to break into a run as he matches his great-great-great-and-more-greats grandmother’s brisk stride.

 

“Can I ask how you know this?” she pursues, shooing perplexed and geared-up students as she sweeps down a corridor.

 

Kit hesitates. She’s family, but she’s also Ty’s instructor. The horrific image of Ty being expelled or having his Marks stripped looms in his mind.

 

“I’m a healer, Kit. If Ty’s in trouble, I need to know what kind,” Catarina reminds him with a pointed glare.

 

Kit’s fists clench white.

 

“A ghost told me. She warned me about Ty behaving strangely and went to check on him. Five minutes later, she re-appeared to me in a bad state, trying to tell me about Ty being in danger… and about blood.”

 

His grandmother’s face hardens to a steel mask, and she breaks into a jog, Kit now having to catch up to her.

 

“Stay in your rooms!” Catarina orders brusquely as they come to a stop before one of the indistinguishable doors of the student dormitories-cum-barracks. Curious onlookers duck back into their rooms, but a quick glance tells Kit that those doors aren’t shutting, and he suspects the students aren’t staying in either.

 

Catarina pushes the door before her, clearly expecting it to swing open. It doesn’t budge.

 

Kit doesn’t like the troubled expression in her eyes.

 

“He’s runed it shut,” Catarina whispers, her soft voice heavy with trepidation. “These doors don’t have locks.”

 

Suddenly, everything’s a white haze. When Kit next regains awareness, he finds himself pummelling Ty’s door, screaming his name.

 

“Ty! Ty, open the door now! Ty!”

 

“Kit, we can dispel the rune!”

 

But Kit can’t seem to hear Catarina. He launches himself at the door, cracking it.

 

“Kit!” Catarina calls again, moving to stop her grandson.

 

An inhuman scream from within stops her cold.

 

Like a man possessed, Kit backs up and hurls everything he has into the barrier, a white flare of pain piercing his right shoulder. But the battered door breaks, and Kit stumbles into the room, a desperate creature scanning wildly for the one he has come for.  

 

What he finds brings him no relief.

 

Ty is on his knees, face turned up to the ceiling, his arms and legs spasming madly. A raw scream rips out of him, the same inhuman-sounding scream of before; the sound of a soul being torn up slowly, piece by piece.

 

Kit chokes back a howl of grief and throws himself next to Ty, wrapping the one arm that he can still move around Ty’s head, cradling it.

 

“Ty! Ty? No. No! Ty, no please-” Kit weeps, “come back to me!”

 

Like a miracle, Ty’s convulsions slowly subside, and silver eyes clear enough to fill with recognition.

 

“...Kit?”

 

Kit blesses every angel he knows and tearfully kisses Ty on the forehead.

 

“You fool… _what have you done?_ ”

 

“Kit! He’s not out of the woods yet,” Catarina warns sharply. She kicks the door shut and kneels next to her patient. Resting fingertips over his mind and his heart, Catarina examines Ty, who’s fallen unconscious, with a quick eye.

 

Kit turns between Catarina and Ty, praying that she’ll say he’s alright and this can all be fixed.

 

Catarina catches Kit’s nervous gaze and a flicker of inscrutable thought in her own makes him tense.

 

“He’s going to convulse again,” she announces matter-of-factly, and Kit squeezes Ty closer to him. “Let’s have him lie down on his bed.”

 

“I can’t move my arm-”

 

But Catarina is already reaching across to touch his shoulder. A warm feeling floods it, and the pop as his bone slides back into place barely hurts.

 

Before Kit can wrap his newly repaired arm around Ty, Catarina adroitly lifts Ty out of Kit’s hold, moving him with surprising strength to the bed.

 

“Don’t use that shoulder for a couple of days, at least. Not unless you want it to pop out again. Now hush!” Catarina orders, cupping Ty’s face in her sky blue hands. Kit scrambles over to the foot of Ty’s bed, his hands shaking as he watches Ty’s body begin to twitch again.

 

“It’s ok... It’s ok...” Catarina soothes, her eyes intent on Ty’s fluttering lids. “You can let go now. That’s... it. That’s… it.”

 

Ty stills again and Kit gasps a sob of relief. Yet, his throat tightens when Catarina raises Ty’s shirt and a wave of terror makes the room lurch for Kit. Bruises bloom and fade on Ty’s pale skin, and Kit realises with a sickened horror that the bruises are all forming over vital spots. Kit jolts towards Ty but the door bursts open at that moment, Ragnor advancing in looking absolutely harassed.

 

“They’re not happy, but thank goodness for…” he comes to a stop, taking in Kit’s panicked face and Catarina’s tense expression. His eyes squint at Ty’s limp form and he immediately marches over.

 

Ragnor hisses sharply when he sees the rippling bruises and lifts grave eyes to Catarina.

 

“His mind?”

 

“Carnage. Death and pain; ripping him apart.”

 

Kit starts.

 

“We have to save him! We have to do everything to save him!”

 

Ragnor peers searchingly at Kit.

 

“We’re trying, Christopher, but we need to understand the cause of this malady before we can properly treat it. Anything you know about this-”

 

“I don’t! I don’t know anything about this!” When Ragnor raises a brow, Kit shakes his head vehemently. “I really don’t know! Livvy suspected he might be doing something dangerous, then she disappeared. It’s only when I got here that she said something about blood and danger.”

 

“Clearly, Kit’s telling us all that he knows,” Catarina interjects. “You saw the ceremonial circles on the floor. This is obviously the work of some spell.”

 

Ragnor sighs gustily.

 

“I was hoping to be wrong. No, I believe you, Kit. I also think I know what spell it is, but I’ll have to cast some protections on myself to confirm it.”

 

Catarina’s eyes narrow darkly.

 

“It’s the Waters of Reflection, isn’t it?”

 

“I’m afraid so.”

 

Kit looks at both of them, uncomprehending.

 

“What-”

 

“It’s dark divination magic,” Ragnor explains. “Gazing upon the Waters of Reflection allows you to see and feel the pain you’ve inflicted on others. Touching it is even worse. But in Ty’s case…”

 

He turns to regard the flashing golden goblet, toppled under a lone ray of moonlight.

 

“He drank it…” Kit mumbles, the cold fingers of dread closing around his heart. “Why? Why would he do that to himself?”

 

“That’s not as important as figuring out _how_ we’re going to deal with it,” Catarina reminds him. “Ragnor?”

 

“Induced emesis?” he suggests and Catarina nods. Ragnor turns back to the circles. “I need to ward that first.”

 

Catarina conjures a metal bucket as Ragnor begins his wards. She spares Kit, who’s watching all this nervously, a glance.

 

“You’ll want to leave. This isn’t going to be pretty.”

 

“I’m not leaving him,” Kit tells her flatly.

 

“Actually, you are.” Ragnor has finished with his wards. “You’ll want to thank Magnus for getting the Consul to give you a cover story. And then, you’ll want to explain this to the Blackthorns who are probably plotting to kidnap a Centurion if no one gives them any answers soon.”

 

Kit blanches.

 

“They’re here?” he says in a small voice.

 

“Jem called Emma to find out if you were with her.”

 

Kit looks even paler.

 

“Apparently, your fire-message to him didn’t say where you were headed. Anyway, one thing led to another, and I may have informed them about your mission here.”

 

Kit takes a final look at Ty, now eased onto his side with Catarina propping him up. He looks peaceful, blissfully unconscious.

 

“Kit. Kit!”

 

Kit tears his gaze away reluctantly and looks up at Catarina.

 

“Tell them they need to let us do our work. We can’t do it disturbed,” she instructs him sternly.

 

“We’ll call you when we’re done,” Ragnor promises. “Till then, up the stairs, two floors up, third door on the right.”

 

Kit looks at Catarina’s calm and confident ministrations, then at Ragnor who joins her in supporting their patient, and makes the hardest decision in his life.

 

Kit finds the Blackthorns, by blood and honour both, huddled together in a spartan guest room. Set in an alcove, a single witchlight casts long shadows that loom over him forbiddingly. The chill in the room pierces his bones.

 

“Finally-” he’d heard when he first entered, but the nostalgic voice fell abruptly silent and now Kit feels the squirming unease in the pit of his stomach tie itself into knots.

 

He shuts the door behind him and manages, somehow, to face his once-adoptive family.

 

Three distinct faces regard him- Emma, Julian, and… Dru? Helen must have stayed behind with Tavvy. Kit knows Mark has Alliance matters to attend to at the New York Institute.

 

_Mark'll be livid._

 

“Kit!” Emma exclaims softly, rousing Kit from his tangle of thoughts. She is as lovely as ever, maybe even more so, her womanhood having ripened from a rarefied nectar to a rich honey ambrosia.

 

His attention is quickly arrested by Julian whose unruly hair falls in angry dark waves over a face as tense as a drawn bowstring. His blue-green eyes sparkle with emotion that, not for the first time, Kit cannot completely read.

 

“Where is Ty?” Julian asks. It is a command more than a question.

 

“Catarina-” Kit begins, startled by how thin and hollow his voice sounds. He tries to clear his throat and licks his dry lips. “Catarina Loss and Ragnor Fell are trying to help him, and they can’t afford interruptions.”

 

Julian starts but Emma already has a calming hand on his shoulder. It’s Dru who steps forward, and this girl is not the Dru of his childhood. Gone is the self-conscious, withdrawn intensity. This is a Dru whose full curves and fiery gaze flow with molten sensuality.  

 

“What’s wrong with Ty?” she demands, skewering Kit with her penetrating glare.

 

“He may have drunk something bad.”

 

“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

 

Kit veils his eyes, swallowing hard.

 

“Something called the Waters of Reflection-” and Emma gasps- “-something that makes him relive all the pain he’s ever caused.”

 

_Every Downworlder he’s ever killed, every clammy grip of fear he’s ever inspired in Julian, every agony Livvy experienced when she was torn away from her peaceful repose…_

 

“Why would he do that?” Emma asks. “Didn’t he know-”

 

Kit shakes his head, but his mind is already working it out.

 

_Maybe he wanted answers. Maybe he wanted to know what he did to Livvy._

 

“Ragnor said…” Julian gulps, “Ragnor said you told him Ty is dying. Did you know about this? Did he tell you?”

 

Kit snaps his head up, aghast.

 

“I wouldn’t-”

 

“It’s not Ty,” Dru began grimly, “it was Livvy, wasn’t it?”

 

Thunderstruck, Kit stares at her bloodlessly, just as Julian and Emma do.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He told you?”

 

Julian and Kit say at the same time.

 

Julian and Emma stare at Kit.

 

“It’s true?” Emma whispers in shock.

 

Julian stalks up to Kit and seizes him by his shoulders.

 

“Livvy told you? Her- her spirit?”

 

Kit hangs his head miserably.

 

“How long has this been going on? How long!”

 

Julian shakes Kit’s unresisting body as if he were a rag doll.

 

“Julian- Julian, let him go.”

 

“It’s not his fault!” Dru snapped and Kit comes alive enough to shoot her a look of alarm.

 

_Is she going to-_

 

But he didn’t have to worry. She rolls her eyes at his expression.

 

“Only Ty can see her… and Kit, because he’s a-”

 

“-Herondale,” Emma finishes. “Herondales can see ghosts. And in Ty’s case he… he’s her twin.”

 

“Why didn’t he tell any of us?” Julian asks brokenly, his hands falling limp at his sides.

 

“No one was there to listen,” Dru answers bluntly though she holds up a hand. “I’m not blaming anyone, and certainly not you, Julian. You had a lot on your plate. The world had to be saved from the blight orchestrated by Kieran’s crazy father. You and Emma had to deal with the _parabatai_ situation. Then there’s stupid Zara and her idiotic Cohort. But all that doesn’t change the fact that Ty and I had no one for a while. Except for Kit.” Dru glances grudgingly at the boy in question.

 

Julian looks at Kit as if it’s the first time he’s recognising him. The hug is fierce and sudden.

 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles hoarsely into Kit’s ear, “for lashing out at you. You must be scared to death too.”

 

Julian’s comforting _him_? It’s unbearable.

 

“They’re trying to make him throw up the water… but… he’s getting bruises. I think... for every wound he’s ever inflicted,” Kit reports as he gently frees himself.

 

The worry in Julian’s eyes returns, but to Kit’s envy, there’s obvious deliberation behind it.

 

“We should call Magnus. He healed Livvy,” pain flickers momentarily on his face, “maybe he can heal Ty. I’ll call him.”

 

As Julian retreats to the window with his phone, Emma seizes her chance to hug Kit. For the second time this night, he’s engulfed in warmth for which he feels completely unworthy. When she draws back, Emma doesn’t release his shoulders, looking him over critically.

 

“You’re shivering. And you feel hot.” She emphasises her point by putting the back of her hand against his forehead.

 

“I’m ok,” Kit assures her, but his smile is less assuaging and more grimacing.

 

“Yeah, I know what that means,” Emma says with a hooked smile and brief sideways glance at Julian who’s nodding on the phone to Magnus, Kit has to assume. Emma ignores Kit’s repeated insistence that he’s not breaking out in cold sweat, it’s just a really warm night and what do you mean you can see snow-capped peaks from the window. She steers him firmly into a chair and plants him there, bringing out her stele. Emma winks in a way that makes Kit immediately understand why Julian’s going to marry her.

 

“Any requests?”

 

“I’m just tired.”

 

“Energy rune it is.”

 

As she draws the rune on his right inner forearm, she murmurs to him in an undertone.

 

“You did it again, didn’t you? The Faerie magic thing.”

 

Kit stiffens, then nods almost imperceptibly.

 

“How could you be so rash! These mountains and its forests could be hiding any number of Downworlders, particularly faeries, that could have seen you do something no Shadowhunter should be able to do!”

 

Kit meets the accusation in her eyes squarely.

 

“Ty was in danger.”

 

“ _Is_ in danger.”

 

Kit and Emma both jump. Dru regards them with an unreadable expression, then shakes her head impatiently.

 

“I’m tempted to march down to wherever Ty is- where did you say he is again?”  

 

“I didn’t,” Kit replies cautiously.

 

_How much did she hear?_

 

“Magnus is coming, along with Jem.”

 

Kit pales.

 

Julian smiles, though it’s a haunted one.

 

“Apparently Tessa _was_ very, and I quote, ‘displeased with your manner of leaving’. But once Magnus mentioned to her about Ty and the Waters of Reflection, she’s decided against extreme measures. She also says she’ll come as soon as she can.”

 

Kit buries his face in his hands.

 

“She should just stay home and look after the Princess.”

 

“ _Princess?_ ” Dru asks, the word rolling in her mouth like a foul-tasting candy.

 

Kit raises his head. “Their girl,” he says a little defensively. “It’s what I call her.”

 

“Oh. Cute.” Dru relaxes visibly, a smile playing on her lips.

 

Kit eyes her suspiciously.

 

They lull into the heavy silence of loved ones holding a vigil while healers do their work. Emma touches Julian with the instincts of a _parabatai_ and the intimacy of a lover. It’s nothing awkwardly PDA, but fingertips caressing his wrist, or the side of his neck, easing the deep frown knitting Julian’s brows by fractions. Dru stares distantly out the window, like she’s posing for an introspective selfie.

 

Kit imagines the caption.

 

_What I look like when a one-time house guest intrudes on a private family moment._

 

Or,

 

_Wonder if I can get away with pushing the Lost Herondale out of this window. Lol._

 

Dru’s definitely angry with him, Kit realises, so he’s surprised, and more than a little apprehensive, when she suddenly turns to him and breaks the silence.

 

“So what have you been doing?”

 

“What?”

 

“You know, since you vanished without a word.”

 

Kit flushes, and lowers his gaze to a point somewhere around Dru’s boots.

 

“Er… training. Lots of... training?” he finishes lamely.

 

“Magical training?”

 

Kit’s eyes shoot back up.

 

“What?”

 

“It’s no use denying it. Ty saw it, what you did with the Riders of Mannan. And Julian and Emma,” Dru turns to her older brother and honorary sister, “right?”

 

Emma looks a little sheepish, but Julian is as unfathomable as always. Dru ignores them.

 

“He investigated it, you know. Ty. When he gets better, he’ll have questions.”

 

Kit smiles at her for the first time in years; a fragile smile, yet bearing all his hope.

 

“I’d like the chance to answer them.”

 

A polite knock on the door jolts everyone, but a shock of familiarity tells Kit it’s not who the Blackthorns or Emma think it is.

 

The door opens to reveal short cropped brown hair and gently curving eyes of the same colour.

 

“Jem,” Kit breathes.

 

A little squeal of delight escapes Emma and she blurs past Kit to seize her last living relative in a fond embrace.

 

“It’s good to see you, Emma.”

 

Emma lets Jem go with a self-conscious glance at Dru and Julian.

 

“I’m sorry, this isn’t the time-”

 

But Julian’s already waving her apology away.

 

“Magnus?”

 

Jem nods with an assuring smile.

 

“Downstairs. Tending to Tiberius. It appears to be going well.” Jem looks specifically at Kit. “Catarina wants you to know that the bruises have stopped.”

 

Kit’s eyes burn and he covers them hastily, ducking his head.

 

“Then we can see him?” Dru asks anxiously.

 

“As I understand it, they’re still trying to repair his mind,” Jem explains sympathetically, “so he can’t take visitors just yet. I'd recommend some sleep, but I know this will not be a welcome suggestion. Kit, let's get them some refreshments, at least.”

 

Wincing, Kit dries his eyes and crosses over to Jem.

 

"Good luck!" Dru murmurs with a smirk, clearly understanding the code too.

 

"I'll help," Emma offers but Jem shakes his head. "Kit and I need to talk anyway."

 

Emma gives Kit an "I tried" shrug before Jem drapes an arm around him and draws him away.

 

They're walking down a corridor together, Jem's arm still companionably around him, when Kit breaks.

 

"I'm sorry. I should have told you where I was going."

 

"No, I quite understand, Kit."

 

Kit peers at him suspiciously. Jem chuckles, baffling Kit some more.

 

"I've known many Herondales, Kit. Reckless pursuit of loved ones is something of an ancestral trait, wouldn't you say?"

 

Kit has to grin. Will, Jace, and even the truth about Tobias that he had heard from Catarina, prove that well enough.

 

"No, Kit, my concern is of a more fundamental nature." Jem pauses and turns to face his boy. "How are you feeling? And before you say something expedient, think for a moment why I'm asking. Tessa was petrified when we heard what you did to get past the ancient Scholomance wards."

 

Kit hangs his head.

 

"I'm sorry. There was no time."

 

"I see that now, but that doesn't address my concern."

 

Kit squirms, knowing charm doesn’t really work on Jem. "I'm alright. Just tired."

 

"Powerful magic draws upon powerful energy. In the case of fey magic, this is from spiritually-rich natural phenomena, ley lines, and ultimately Faerie itself, with Faerie blood serving as a conduit. _Your_ conduit has abundant reason to be overtaxed." Jem ruffles his hair. “You did your part, as well as any Herondale could, but now it’s time to rest. Ragnor tells me there’s a room prepared for you, with a fairly nice bed.”

 

Kit hesitates. Emma’s energy rune seems like a million years ago. He does feel like an overboiled noodle.

 

_But, Ty-_

 

“A mind is a difficult thing to fix,” Jem adds, seeming to read his, “Tiberius will be unconscious for a while. The most useful thing you can do for him is to rest and recover the strength he will need from you when he awakes.”

 

Abruptly, and surprising even himself, Kit hugs Jem in a tight, fierce gesture.

 

“Thank you for understanding, and… for being here.”

 

Jem’s smile is hidden in Kit’s pale gold curls.

 

“It’s in the job description.”

 

But there is another reason why Kit agrees so readily to the Sleep Now rune Jem draws over his nape.

 

When he descends into slumber, his body draws power from the confluence of ley lines the Scholomance is built upon. It isn’t much, relatively speaking, because he’s genuinely exhausted and also because ley lines can be quite racist. Half the blood, half the magic. But even half of the First Heir’s blood is a lot of magic.   

 

_Take me to Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. Take me to Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. Take me to Tiberius-_

 

“DO YOU CONFESS TO YOUR CRIMES?”

 

Kit quails before the imposing figure that looms in front of him. It is Ty but it isn’t Ty. Ty’s silver eyes would never blaze with such vindictiveness. Ty’s voice would never drip with such venom. Ty would also never dip himself in molten silver and wrap himself in the senatorial togas of ancient Rome.

 

He also isn’t a fifty-foot angel.

 

Kit throws up his hands in mock horror.

 

“Aargh! Okay! _I_ took the last doughnut and blamed it on Church!”

 

But the angel ignores him. Maybe it doesn’t like sassy, dream-walking half-breeds. Maybe it doesn’t get the joke.

 

_"Livvy told me that when people tell jokes that aren’t that funny, the polite thing is to ignore them."_

 

Also, the angel isn’t speaking to him.

 

Kneeling on a single stone column of basalt, the neat, tidy rows of igneous rock like the seamless molten tears of all of hell’s demons despairing of mercy, is Ty.

 

Kit flies towards him over lakes of fire that roar, not with the hungry blaze of an inferno, but with conversation, loud and confusing.

 

“DO YOU CONFESS TO YOUR CRIMES?”

 

“Okay! I also burned my fingers stealing a cookie off the cooling rack, and drew an _iratze_ to destroy the evidence. Mercy!”

 

Ty-zilla is unamused.

 

_Tough crowd._

 

Kit is left to chuckle to himself, but his humour evaporates when he sees the true avatar of Ty’s consciousness, dwarfed by the terrifying colossus in his image, hugging himself in tears.

 

“I didn’t know!” Ty protests.”I didn’t mean to!”

 

“DOES THAT MAKE IT RIGHT? DOES THAT UNDO THEIR PAIN?”

 

“No- no, but I-”

 

“IN YOUR ARROGANCE, YOU ABUSED YOUR FRIEND, CURSED YOUR FAMILY, AND PERVERTED THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE...”

 

“Ty!” Kit calls, floating directly in front of the kneeling boy. “Ty, look at me!”

 

But Kit can’t block out an angel fifty feet tall who speaks like thunder.

 

“...AND FOR THESE CRIMES, I CONDEMN YOU TO THE EVERLASTING FIRES OF HELL!”

 

Ty’s pale face is a mask of panic, and before Kit can do anything, the basalt columns crumble and slide into the seething conflagration below. Kit lunges to catch Ty, but he falls fast, supernaturally fast, as if pitched into the hellfire by avenging angels.

 

Kit races to follow, but he balks before the dread flames. They do not give off heat, but fear, shockingly palpable and sanity-crushing fear. If he enters within, he will not have any awareness left to get out- not until Ty decides to wake up from this nightmare.

 

The deafening din of a thousand cacophonous voices is nauseating. But more distressing are the millions upon millions of disembodied arms that stretch desperately from the fire, all belonging to Ty, all spasming in agony, as his screams chorus and echo throughout the hellscape.

 

“Help me! Livvy! Julian! Help me! Mark! Dru! Help me!”

 

Kit sobs helplessly, half-ready to hurl himself into the fire, if only to drown out the terrible voices.

 

The scent of crisp papers and Chinese calligraphy ink brushes his consciousness and the sense of Jem is clear and powerful. Kit draws strength from it and, with a pang, rises higher and away from the torments below. He cannot help Ty by suffering with him, but he can speak to Ty in a way he might listen.

 

With the merest pinch of will, Kit summons a _guqin_ from the aether of dreams, his fingers stroking the strings almost by instinct.

 

With the first note, the anguished cries soften, as if Ty’s subconscious notices something unexpected. Kit’s fingers dance across the sensitive strings, pouring his heart through his fingertips and into the music. Raindrops on catkins. Whispering secret words into the hollow of one’s palm. The tingling warmth of breath against cold, soft skin.

 

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

 

His sorrow rains down in a heavy patter, reaching into the infernal fire to trace the heart trapped within.

 

The miracle of a rainbow. Birds inviting the sun’s rays to dry their feathers. We peek out from our nest of blankets and watch the lingering raindrops glistening from the eaves. You whisper more secret words in my ear.

 

“Kit.”

 

And suddenly Ty, an angel of flesh and light, human-sized yet infinite in the splendour of love, rises up to him with an expression of unbearable tenderness.

 

“Don’t cry.”

 

The _guqin_ melts away as Kit lets the angel gather him in his arms with a solidity that shuts out every other thought.

 

“Okay.”

 

Kit awakens briefly to Jem smiling sadly over him, drying the tears on Kit’s cheeks, and he finally falls into genuine sleep with a smile.

 

It’s Jace who wakes him up, with a very annoying smirk that Kit wishes he has the energy to wipe off.

 

“So, _someone’s_ had an exciting night.”

 

Kit props himself up on his elbows with a groan.

 

“You know how it is when you’re young and know how to have fun. Or you used to know, anyway.”

 

Jace’s face falls and someone laughs behind him.

 

Well, what do you know- he does have the energy. Kit turns with satisfaction to regard Alec who smothers his laughter belatedly.

 

“This… may be too much for me,” Alec confesses when he composes himself.

 

“Kid, I was the King of Fun before you even learned to say ‘party’!” Jace raps back then frowns a little too late.

 

“Exactly my point.”

 

“Exactly his point.”

 

Kit and Alec say at the same time.

 

Jace smiles, and Kit feels like he’s looking at an impossibly more handsome and seductive reflection.

 

“Guess I walked right into that one. But listen, we’ve volunteered to be your morning wake-up call for a reason.”

 

Kit straightens warily while Jace runs his fingers through his perfect blond hair.

 

“Not to get all preachy and remind you that ‘the Law is hard, but it is the Law’ or anything-”

 

“-but what you did isn’t something that should be repeated,” Alec finishes solemnly.

 

“We’re talking about the destroying ancient Shadowhunter wards thing. The saving fellow Shadowhunters thing, we like.” Jace flashes a thumbs-up to punctuate his point.

 

“It’s not just about Clave law, which _is_ important, but the Cold Peace is not exactly a distant memory. If people were to know that someone with the blood of both Faerie Courts attacked the Scholomance, it could inflame old hatreds.”

 

Kit lowers his head as Alec continues.

 

“When Jem contacted Magnus, we decided to prepare a pre-emptive fire-message, that you were on a secret mission to rescue a Shadowhunter in danger- which was essentially all your message to Jem said. When it was clear you were headed to Scholomance, we sent the message there. Your… performance with the Scholomance wards, we’re putting down to… the legendary Herondale epicness.”

 

Kit blinks.

 

“ _Really?_ ”

 

Alec shrugs in embarrassment.

 

“It’s a curse we Herondales have to bear,” Jace notes, completely straight-faced.

 

“The point is-” Alec stresses, with an eye roll for his _parabatai_ , “-that Shadowhunters will take craziness from a Herondale, but not from a descendant of the First Heir, which means _that_ secret has to be a closely guarded one.”

 

“At least until you’ve proven your loyalty to the Clave.” Jace looks a trifle uncomfortable. “But don’t worry, cousin of mine, I have complete faith in you and our epic Herondale-ness.”

 

Kit frowns but nods his understanding. He looks around, as if he might spot his guardian hiding behind a wardrobe.

 

“Where’s Jem?”

 

It’s Alec who answers.

 

“Portalled back to Devon to check on Tessa and their daughter. He said he’d come by with Tessa tomorrow morning. Late morning, I think. But he also said you can send a fire-message to him if you want to leave earlier, since you left your phone behind.”

 

Jace takes over with a sly grin.

 

“He also told us to make sure the Blackthorns know you helped with Ty’s healing through your pervy dream powers. So we did. They’re with Ty now, no doubt waiting to crush you with tearful hugs and wet, soppy kisses.”

 

Kit turns red.

 

“ _Pervy_ dream powers?”

 

“So… what exactly does Magnus do with _seven_ Alecs?”

 

“Jace!”

 

Kit changes first into the fresh Shadowhunter gear someone thought to hang up for him. He considers hitting the showers, but he doesn’t think the Centurions will be very happy to see him sharing their body wash- not after last night, word of which has probably spread throughout Scholomance. Also, his heart is thudding like crazy, now that he’s seeing Ty again, in the flesh, while he’s actually conscious and not under the thrall of dark divination magic. The first time in over three years. Kit has to actually resist the urge to run through the hallways and corridors, barge into Ty’s room to check he’s in one piece, then flee all the way back to Cirenworth.

 

Instead, he dresses himself as calmly as he can manage, and tries to recall the way to Ty’s room. After three awkward encounters and one more which leaves Kit meditating on the benefits of installing locks on the doors of young Centurions, Kit finds the right door, and it is much, much worse.

 

“You’re supposed to be resting!” Dru scolds, clearly having lost the battle as Ty is up and grabbing the first thing hanging in his wardrobe.

 

“I have to see Kit,” Ty insists, pulling on his Centurion military-style jacket.

 

“Ty! You haven’t even properly put on your gear- and there he is, already, Ty,” Dru points out, gesturing to a frozen Kit.

 

Ty turns to look at him with silver eyes wide and shining, his curls messy in a way that makes Kit want to lace his fingers through them; and that jacket! That jacket should not be allowed on Ty’s slender, naked torso, because the unsashed, unbuttoned black fabric frames his pale, lean, but clearly-defined abdominal muscles in a way that very nearly makes Kit rip the door off its hinges.

 

“Kit,” Ty whispers, but it’s like a thunderclap to Kit. Highly aware that his cheeks are conspicuously red, Kit looks up from Ty’s belt to the Centurion’s searching gaze. “You came.”

 

“He came, he saw, and damn, he’d like to conquer,” Dru quips, seeming to enjoy Kit’s flaming embarrassment.

 

“I, er…” Kit casts around for something to say. “Livvy was concerned about you.”

 

Ty nods, as if Kit were merely talking about a call he received.

 

“I told Julian about us trying to raise her from the dead.”

 

Dru meets Kit’s look of alarm, and Kit can see the fading traces of tears on her face. Ty’s eyes are a little reddened too. He continues.

 

“I told him how you tried to stop me. How it hurt you to help me at all, at first. Julian’s still processing it, with Emma.”

 

“Ty, you-” Kit took an involuntary step towards Ty, but Ty shakes his head.

 

“I needed to do this. I owe it to Julian. To Livvy.” He swallows hard, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh guard. “I could feel their pain. I felt your pain when I said I had nothing without Livvy, even after you had told me that you loved me.”

 

“Okay!” Dru raises her arms in a pose of surrender. “I’m out. You guys need to talk this through, _in private_ ,” Dru stresses as she marches out of the room, shaking her head.

 

When the door shuts behind her, Kit falls back against it heavily.

 

“Why did you do it, Ty?”

 

Ty swallows again, but he does not look away.

 

“I was blinded by grief. I thought no one else could understand the pain that I was feeling, and so no one else could understand why I needed to bring her back-”

 

“No, Ty, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I understand that. Now. I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t understand that sooner. No, I-” Kit rests his lips against his knuckles, his breaths hard. “Livvy is _my_ fault. I wanted… not to lose you, so much; so much that I… I didn’t care what it would do to you, to Livvy, not until everything was too late.”

 

“I _felt_ your pain,” Ty repeats slowly, leaning a little to peer more directly into Kit’s eyes, “I know what you went through. I know how hard you fought. How much it hurt you.”

 

“But, why? Why did you need to feel any of that? Why did you put yourself through that? Why did you drink that blasted water? You could have killed yourself!”

 

“Because,” and Ty moves close enough to stretch his arm out and brush an odd, jagged lock of hair away from Kit’s eyes, “I wanted to fix it. I broke it, so I had to fix it. But to fix it, I needed to know what I’d broken; how I’d broken it. Now I know.”

 

Kit sees the answer in Ty’s unflinching gaze, and he shivers.

 

_I broke your heart._

 

“I want to fix it. Can I fix it?”

 

Ty is close enough for their breaths to press against each other.

 

“Ty-”

 

“I love you too. I love you. I’ve always loved you, since the first time I knew I shouldn’t let you run away from our Institute.”

 

Kit’s eyes brim with a brittle light.

 

“You don’t have to say this. I don’t need you to make up for anything.”

 

Ty’s eyes are clear and pure.

 

“I’m only making up for lost time.”

 

Then, everything is too close, too intense, and too filled with the hum of surprise in Ty’s breath, his lips, his tongue.

 

Kit doesn’t even care that he can hear Dru’s muffled squeals from behind the door.

 

“Is Dru-” Ty begins, the fine, straight edge of his nose crossing Kit’s.

 

“Yes. Now, hush, and kiss me again.”

 

They do eventually leave Ty’s room, mainly because Kit’s starving. Dru has the decency to make herself scarce by the time they open the door, so Kit is spared the effort of pretending to be scandalised.

 

Kit hesitates as their fingertips brush not-so-subconsciously against each other, but Ty catches his hand like it’s a crucial bit of evidence for a case he’s been working on. Which reminds Kit of the night Ty had accosted him whilst he’d been making a run for it with Institute loot in a duffel bag.

 

 _“You’re a criminal.”_ Ty had stated calmly while he lounged on Kit’s solar plexus.

 

_“Look, if you need me so you can arrest me for fun, I feel I should point out it’s the sort of thing you can only do once.”_

 

Well, hopefully once. Maybe even more than once. Jem and Tessa are only picking him up late tomorrow morning.

 

Kit shakes his head and simply savours the feeling of Ty’s fingers wrapped around his. A little strange but ridiculously reassuring.

 

“You know there are many legends about this place, even amongst the mundanes.”

 

Kit turns indulgently to Ty and lets him talk.

 

“One legend describes the Scholomance as a school of the Solomonari, powerful wizards who were once the children of everyday folk, inducted into the school to master fearsome magic and ride great storm dragons.”

 

“Sounds sexy,” Kit remarks with a grin.

 

“Does it?” Ty looks thoughtful. “I guess it might be possible to tame a dragon demon with the right spells…”

 

“Okay, rapidly becoming unsexy.”

 

“There are local legends about sex, if that interests you.”

 

A couple of Centurions just ahead of them whip their heads around and Kit has to bite back his laughter.

 

“There’s the Zburatorul, or ‘flying one’. Sometimes described as a wolf-headed dragon with a tail of fire, sometimes as a shooting star, and sometimes as a wandering spirit, taking the form of a bewitchingly beautiful young man who visits the dreams of an unsuspecting ‘lover’ that has caught his fancy. He makes such passionate love to such a ‘lover’, that their nights are bereft of rest, and their days are spent bereft, longing for his sex. They say he is actually the incarnation of unrequited love for a man and the intense erotic desire for him. Does that interest you?”

 

Kit can feel the gaze of every Centurion within earshot boring holes into him with their stares.

 

“I think the Zburatorul might actually be faerie nobles riding on their magical steeds and visiting people in their dreams. Isn’t that interesting?”

 

Kit can almost hear the gears turning in the heads of curious Centurions. His ears burn.

 

“You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you?”

 

Ty glances at him, innocently bemused.

 

“Yes. I would like to talk about things that interest you.”

 

As Ty leads Kit to a quiet spot at the communal dining table, Magnus murmurs softly so only his two best friends at the high table can hear.

 

“Now isn’t _that_ interesting.”

 

Ragnor doesn’t even look up from his soup.

                      

“Leave it, Magnus.”                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

“Oh, come on. We worked hard all night. We deserve a little fun.”

 

Catarina peers primly at him from above her sandwich.

 

“He’s my _grandson_ , Magnus.”

 

“Which gives you teasing rights! Come on, I’ll get us started.”

 

Magnus’ cat-like eyes focus on Kit, who is trying to act like he’s unimpressed by the small kingdom of a dining hall. He mimics the boy’s haughty drawl.

 

“ _This_ is where you’re taking me for our first date? Lunch by witchlight?”

 

His earlier reluctance notwithstanding, a smiling Ty gets the benefit of Ragnor’s dry voice.

 

“I know it’s not much to look at, but the vegan menu here is to die for.”

 

“Vegan? _Vegan?_ Do I look like a rabbit to you?”

 

Catarina cuts in for Ty who is whispering something in Kit’s ear.

 

“No, my love, you are a magnificent pearlescent stag, with antlers of pale gold.”

 

Ragnor takes over for a Kit who is counting something with his fingers.

 

“That’s minus five points for bad flattery, minus twenty for the poor dining options… this date is not getting a great review on RateMyDate.net.”

 

Ty adjusts his jacket, which is open and unbuttoned for some reason.

 

“Date’s not over, baby. Especially since I’m on the menu.”

 

Kit rubs his hands over his arms, hunching his shoulders exaggeratedly as he gestures with his head.

 

“I’m getting goosebumps,” Ragnor and Catarina say together.

 

Ty stands up and Magnus opens his mouth to-

 

Gasp. And cackle evilly, while the whole school turns to watch Ty take off his Scholomance jacket and drape it over Kit’s shoulders, baring his naked torso, a delicate marble work of smooth craftsmanship.

 

“I think we’re finally going to discover the melting point of a Herondale,” Ragnor notes with interest as Catarina reaches for her tea.

 

“I’ll have to get to know the Blackthorns a little better from now on, I see,” she remarks mildly.

 

“Bravo! Bravo!” Magnus cries, applauding madly, and prompting some confused students to join in.

 

“People are so weird,” Ty confides to a scarlet Kit. “I’m going to slip on a t-shirt before I get cold too. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Or do you want to get something first?”

 

“I- I- I can wait,” Kit answers in a small voice, gripping the sides of the too-long jacket as if he’s a reverse butterfly trying to shrink back into his chrysalis.  

 

Already, he can spot Jace who is trembling with badly contained laughter near the high table, Alec shaking his head nearby while he accepts a kiss from Magnus. To Kit’s further mortification, Jace rushes over to catch up to Ty as he’s about to leave the dining hall and slaps his back in a loud burst of jocular affection.

 

_I am going to poison his bathwater._

 

Perhaps Alec can read his mind, because Jace’s _parabatai_ makes a beeline for Kit. Several Centurions crane their heads trying to see where the Consul is headed. There are many raised eyebrows from those who figure it out.

 

“I take it that your meeting with the Blackthorns went well.”

 

Kit wonders how much blood he can keep in his face before he gets a heart attack.

 

“Ty is feeling better,” Kit manages evenly.

 

“Yes... I can see that.”

 

Alec laughs at Kit’s glower.

 

“There is… something I always wanted to tell you,” Kit remembers suddenly. “That day… at the Imperishable Fields, when we stood before your father’s pyre. I saw something. A ghost.”

 

Alec regards him with a look of sad curiosity.   

 

“A ghost?”

 

Kit nods.

 

“A ghost that didn’t want to be seen, but I-”

 

“-see ghosts all the time.”

 

“Yes. He did come to comfort your mother, though; place a hand on her shoulder. He… had a square jaw, and curling brown hair. He was crying as he approached your father’s pyre. Your father… had a _parabatai_?”

 

“Michael Wayland- oh!” Alec raises a hand to his mouth, his eyes overbright. “Oh.”

 

Kit looks down.

 

“I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

 

Kit feels a broad hand squeeze his shoulder warmly.

 

“I'm happy you did."

 

"Happy he did what?"

 

Kit raises his head to find Jace looking between them, an arched brow punctuating his question.

 

While Alec fills his _parabatai_ in, Kit averts his gaze, giving them the privacy that some Centurions obscenely intrude upon.

 

“That was a good thing you did,” Kit hears Livvy whisper behind him. He doesn’t turn to talk to her, with so many people watching, but he writes his message on the table with his finger.

 

A-R-E Y-O-U O-K-?

 

“Would you do something for me?”

 

Y-E-S.

 

“Thank you.” He feels her cold touch as Livvy leans closer to whisper into his ear.

 

“Kit?”

 

Kit looks up, catching the puzzled looks on both Jace and Alec’s faces.

 

“Sorry. Just realising that there’s something I have to do.”

 

In all honesty, Kit is terrified to do it, but Livvy’s words still weigh heavily on his mind.

 

With a nervous sigh, Kit raps against the door Livvy mentioned. He can hear a soft discussion inside stop abruptly before Emma’s voice calls from within.

 

“It’s not locked.”

 

Kit takes a moment to compose himself before he opens the door. Ty had volunteered to do this with him, but Livvy was clear- Kit has to this alone. Kit also thinks she’s right. As Julian looks at him brokenly from where he sits on the bed, and he spots Emma beside Julian, holding all the pieces of Julian’s heart, wanting to make it whole again, Kit thinks to himself that Livvy’s absolutely right.

 

They both stiffen, seeing him, but Kit pretends he doesn’t notice as he walks up to them. It brings back memories of his father- working the con, not letting the mark know how nervous you are. It’s probably in his faerie blood too; the faerie twist the truth like a clown tying convoluted balloon animals.

 

But this is for Livvy, for Ty, and for all the Blackthorns who, and Kit does not forget, he bailed on three years ago. Three years of pain he could have spared by being a little less selfish. It is his duty to see them extend no further.

 

Emma smiles at him, though her eyes flick worriedly to Julian.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Kit returns the greeting as he sinks casually to the floor, legs crossed. “I figure you’ll want to yell at me some more.”

 

Julian winces, almost imperceptibly, but the shake of his head is firm.

 

“I don’t. In fact, I should be thanking you.” Julian looks at him squarely. “You probably saved Ty from making a terrible mistake.”

 

“That was dumb luck.”

 

Julian grins slyly.

 

“No, that was a great con. Ty’s a lot smarter than most people. You have to be very good to have made him believe you were going to help him, when all along you were slowing him down. If you hadn’t- well, I’d rather not think about that. He almost succeeded as it is.”

 

Kit smiles ruefully.

 

“I was just scared. I didn’t want to lose him, and it felt like I would, if I said no. I was too afraid to refuse him, and just as frightened of him succeeding.”

 

Julian raises his arms in a shrug, making a sound that is half a laugh and half a growl.

 

“If you’re looking for absolution, I’m the last person you should ask. I’m a sinner myself.”

 

“Julian-”

 

“No, Emma! You know what I did.”

 

Kit sees an opportunity and seizes it.

 

“No, Emma’s right. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve been the heart of the Blackthorn family since you were twelve, and its selfless protector.”

 

Julian’s eyes flashes dangerously. His words are slow and menacing.

 

_“You don’t know what I did!”_

 

Kit catches himself shuddering and forces a smile.

 

“Sure I do.”

 

“What?”

 

“Kit, I don’t think you should-”

 

“You had Magnus strip you of your feelings of love for Emma, but it muted all your other emotions, and you couldn’t be there for your family the way you should’ve been.”

 

Julian recoils away from Kit with such force that even Emma is alarmed, and she grabs hold of him, steadying him while she glares at Kit furiously.

 

“How could you possibly-”

 

But Julian’s already worked it out.

 

“Livvy? She knows?”

 

Kit tries to say it as gently as he can, but his answer drains all the colour from Julian’s face.

 

“She does know, Julian.”

 

Emma wraps her former _parabatai_ in her arms, blazing ferociously with the protectiveness of a lioness for her cubs.

 

“Whatever you think you’re doing, Kit, you should stop. Now.”

 

Kit hesitates, but Livvy’s cold hand brushes his cheek encouragingly.

 

“Even if this is what Livvy wants?” he demands.

 

Emma scowls.

 

“Livvy would never blame Julian!”

 

“Livvy _doesn’t_ . That’s the point, Emma. Livvy doesn’t blame you, Julian. Ty doesn’t blame you. But neither of them can be at peace when they know that you can’t forgive yourself. _That’s_ what Livvy wants. That’s what… she tells me to tell you.”

 

Julian looks so vulnerable in Emma’s arms that Kit feels a pang as he watches Emma blink away tears and kiss Julian’s head, whispering over and over that it’s ok; it’s ok.

 

“Tell him that I’m sorry he never got to see me run an Institute. That I would have made him proud.”

 

Kit does so, even as he fights back his own tears, seeing Julian so overwhelmed with his.

 

“And tell him that it doesn’t really matter anyway. Because the highest honour in my life would always have been... being worthy of the love of Julian Atticus Blackthorn, the greatest brother in all the world.”

 

Julian reaches down and lifts Kit into his arms.

 

“Tell Livvy, I love her so much. _So much_. I love her _so much_.”

 

Kit shivers as Livvy filters through him and, in that moment, is reunited with her most doting brother.

 

Kit’s heart is still heavy hours after he left an exhausted Julian sleeping in Emma’s watchful embrace.

 

Livvy had thanked him, and Emma had even apologised for “getting a little snippy”, but to Kit, the kind words only feel like the bars of a cage, trapping his restless heart.

 

It’s Ty who points out the obvious.

 

“You need some fresh air. Didn’t you come here on a flying horse?”

 

“Yeah, but, I’m not really supposed to be doing any flashy Faerie stuff. I sort of promised Alec.”

 

Ty looks amused.

 

“The good thing about having a con man as a boyfriend is that he can always take you for a ride.”

 

Half-an-hour later, they sit astride Half-a-day/Half-a-night, wheeling beneath the blurring constellations in the sky, Ty’s arms feeling like they’ve always belonged around Kit’s waist.

 

If only Half-a-night would stop whining.

 

“We don’t see you for an entire day, and you summon us for _this_?”

 

Half-a-day only nickers in what Kit assumes is an equine leer.

 

“Nice date, Master.”

 

“What are they saying?” Ty wants to know.

 

“Annoying stuff,” Kit mutters.

 

Ty laughs, his hot breath making Kit’s stomach twist pleasantly.

 

“You can put on my headphones if you want. I’ve got a great piece on right now.”

 

Kit grins. Only Ty would bring headphones to a midnight, magical ride.

 

“Sure,” Kit answers simply, and when Ty slips them on, he jerks in surprise and swings his head back, mouth agape.

 

“How’d you- Where’d you get this?”

 

Ty squints at him, bemused.

 

“Rafe and Max said I could make a copy. Why? Don’t you like it?”

 

Kit grunts a laugh, recognising every stroke, every strum of his own music.

 

“Do you?”

 

Ty’s silver eyes glow with a pure joy that tempts Kit to spirit him away here and now.

 

“I love it.”

 

Kit feels his true heart escape to flutter freely amongst the shining stars, and he and Ty blissfully ascend on the unfettered throne of their love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is so much to say, so many words of gratitude to offer, that nothing will seem quite adequate. From beginning to end, the purpose of writing this has been to ease the pain of their parting in the last installment of The Dark Artifices, but the joy derived from sharing this with kindred spirits has been exquisite. While my skills are limited, I do hope you will derive some genuine enjoyment from this fic. If my work offends, I do apologise. Finally, I'd like to express my love and respect to fellow readers and writers, alike, who know only too well passion's sting and longing's madness. May you read and write words that bring more good into this world.
> 
> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


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